


Castaway

by FearlessinBlue



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2003), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: BAMF Leonardo (TMNT), Brother Feels, Foot Leonardo (TMNT), Here we go, Hold onto your feels folks, Indoctrinated Leo, Kinda inspired by the Host, Leo Needs a Hug, Overlord Shredder, Post-Apocalypse, Rebuilding a family from scratch, Whump, i dunno, learning to be a big brother, psychic connection, secret city - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:02:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22798282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FearlessinBlue/pseuds/FearlessinBlue
Summary: In a war-torn world ruled by the Shredder, one brother was lost at sea, left behind in the panic of escape. The other three worked to save as many as possible, creating a world of their own, removed from the pain of what reality has become. But they never gave up on their lost brother, hoping against hope he would one day find them. What they didn't expect was that when he did, it would be as the enemy. And so begins Leo's journey to find himself and the family he never knew he needed.
Comments: 37
Kudos: 88





	1. A World Without Peace

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EchoKazul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoKazul/gifts).



> For EchoKazul, who indirectly inspired me to jump headfirst back into this lovely fandom and actually create again. I am grateful for you and your exquisite works.

Winter had fallen over the Adirondack Mountains like a thick blanket, covering every inch of nature in snow and effectively banishing all life from the surface. For miles in any direction, all that was visible was a hibernating forest and an endless white. A consequence of the harsh season, the eerie silence that plagued the area remained unbroken as if the world was holding its breath in anticipation that the slightest sound would bring forth further punishment from the harsh landscape. The sky remained shrouded by a persistent cloud cover which occasionally grew so heavy with snow that it dipped down to kiss the mountain tops and bestow its bounty in the form of a new layer of white. In deep contrast to their bleached surroundings, the rivers slept under a dark sheet of glass so profound that it could be likened to a black hole. As if adapting to the harshness of winter, these rivers, once a source of life and nourishment, had been transformed into a gamble with death. The slightest step in the wrong direction and it would the darkness beneath the ice would swallow a person whole, claiming their lives in the name of wintertide. And so with the cutting cold paired an air of danger and death.

While some might see the beauty in the cruelty of winter, the figure slowly making his way through the barren landscape had no such appreciation. He was wading his way through the snow piled along the riverbank, moving near-silently despite the natural alarm of the crunch of snow. He was dressed head to toe in camouflaged winter wear of a grey/off-white color near that of the snow without truly capturing its hue. It was enough to conceal him from the eyes of an inexperienced or unsuspecting person. His gear was extensive in its coverage and yet light enough for him to move stealthily. Under the outer layer was a black bodysuit equipped with the technology to moderate the being’s unique body temperature in adverse climates. These wintry mountains most definitely qualified. His three thick fingers were wrapped in cloth that extended up to his arm and under the sleeves of his duster jacket. Slung over his back was a pack made of the same material as his clothing. It stretched over the large roundness of his back, pulled taut over the shell that lay underneath the coat and made the figure appear to have a significant hunchback. While the pack contained survival tools and rations, it was the only expected adornment on the figure’s body. Hanging from his side were two ornate katana, stowed safely in weather-resistant sheaths. Strapped to nearly every other free spot and tucked away in every pocket were various small weapons like shuriken and kunai. A high tech breathing device covered his mouth and nose in opaque plastic and a hood was pulled low over his head. The only part of the figure that remained unconcealed was a pair of electric blue eyes that vigilantly surveyed his surroundings.

Despite his apparent solitude, the figure was tensed for action, with one hand resting on the hilt of the katana at his hip and every muscle ready in a moment's notice to respond to the figure’s every move. He walked this way for a couple more hours until the sky began to darken with the promise of night and he was forced to make camp until the muggy sunlight returned to illuminate his path. He had settled against the corpse of a fallen tree next to a cliff face. Strategically it was easily defendable as there was only one direction from which enemies may emerge. This did not mean that the figure relaxed completely, rather he simply allowed himself to sit in front of a meager fire and enjoy a cup of tea that he had pulled from his stash. To an outsider, he would look vulnerable and lax on his guard but in reality, he heard every shift of the forest around him and every shift of movement in the shadows. He was a warrior through and through.

After a few moments of steeping his tea, the figure reached up with one oddly three-fingered hand and detached the breathing mask from his face, letting it rest gently on the pack that sat beside him on the ground, almost like a silent companion. With the removal of his mask, his mutant features were revealed. He had green scaled skin and the beak of a turtle except it had been reshaped to allow for a very human mouth with a pair of thin lips, already beginning to dry out and crack under the assault of the cold he had been unable to truly feel under his layers. As if taking this one opening, the cold soaked into his body and happily took residence in his bones, chilling him instantly despite his temperature-controlled garments. The turtle shuddered at the feeling and eagerly brought the steaming tea to his lips. One sip was enough to chase away the cold with a vengeance, warmth once more dominating his body and his soul. He wasn’t sure what it was about this particular tea that brought him such comfort, but the sensation was so strong that a mere whiff of its earthy scent could relax and heal him after nearly any hardship. And he knew hardship.

As an elite member of the Imperial Foot Army, the turtle had worked from near infancy to rise through the ranks and prove himself worthy of receiving the rank and training that had been bestowed upon him. Life in the Foot Empire was tough, especially for those conscripted into the Foot Army, as he had been as a young child. He had been raised to fight, practically born with a weapon in his hand to do the bidding of his Master, Overlord Shredder of the Great Foot Empire. His master was not a kind man and as apart of his training the turtle had been subjected to various forms of torture meant to prove his loyalty and strengthen his spirit. Too many scars to count littered the green scaly canvas of his skin. He had been a blank slate crafted by his master and his harsh life into the deadly ninja that he was today. He was grateful for the teachings, passionate in his dedication to the intricate and ancient art on ninjutsu, and had gladly accepted punishment for his failures and endured any test to continue his training. He was a devoted student and an elite warrior, but nothing more.

His master had never even given him a proper name and instead referred to him by his physical species. 

He was Kame.

Kame took another sip of his tea, letting the soothing feeling wash over him and banish the tarnished memories of his rigorous training from his mind. instead, he contemplated the mission he had been given, his very reason for being surrounded by his species’ worst enemy: the cold.

Master Shredder had been born into the rank of leader of the Foot Clan and had single-handedly brought the power of the clan to such heights that he controlled the great New York City from the shadows like a sinister puppet master. But Shredder had not been content with his role from the shadows and so he had brought the Foot Clan into the light in an event known as the Great Awakening when he took control of the city of New York outright. His hunger for power knew no bounds and from there it only seemed to grow as with each step he took more and more pieces of what was once known as the United States East Coast fell to their knees before him. And so the Foot Empire had been born. The Empire was still in its infancy as far as the Shredder’s plans were concerned, but it had been established for nearly 20 years now and was under such tight control that no one could breach its borders from within or without.

The Shredder ruled with an iron fist and as long as every citizen was working towards the glory of the Empire they were left to the standard level of surveillance employed in every inch of the Empire. Those that chose to disobey or oppose his rule were silenced accordingly and as a result, such groups were appearing with less and less frequency as of late. With this new stability within the borders, Shredder had grown unsatisfied and had once again turned his attention towards the expansion of the Empire into what was left of the United States. While no other country had tried to intervene in the initial establishment of the Empire, there was now a concerted effort from Mexico and Canada to aide their one-time ally if only in fear that the Shredder might set his sights on their lands as well. Assuredly their fear was justified because Kame knew that his master would not be satisfied until the world was under his control. 

Two weeks ago he had been sent by helicopter to the border between the Empire and Canada after his Master had received word that there was increased activity at the border not only from Canadian soldiers but also American ones. It had seemed like a serious mission at the time and Kame had been greatly honored to have it bestowed upon him over any other elite. He had been proud to call this mission his own, and in the early days, he had imagined coming home to a great reward or even a promotion to Chuunin of the Foot Empire. Despite his many offspring, Master Shredder had been adamant about choosing the most qualified and deadly warrior as his successor, so even a common mutant such as Kame could be eligible. And if he did earn such a great honor, he would finally give himself a name. After all, Kame was more of a title than a name and if he were to mean anything in this world he would need a name that everyone could remember. Yes when he finally found his place in the world, he would have a name.

As time had worn on and he had battled the elements as well as various foes along the way, Kame resigned himself to the notion that this ‘mission’ was a punishment rather than an honor. After he had completed surveillance each day he had transmitted his notes to Foot Headquarters and was continually the with general disinterest. It had been frustrating, to say the least. And finally, as he was finishing up his assignment he received a communique stating that his transport back to the city had been delayed but he was still expected on the same date. And so Kame found himself hiking the path from the border to New York City. His determination was starting to waver in the face of the wild winter and though he had traveled a long way from the Canadian border, he had even farther to go back to New York City. 

Kame took an absentminded sip of his tea and winced when he found it barely lukewarm, a victim of the biting cold around him. He quickly drank the rest of it and sighed audibly into the night. He was tempted to prolong his journey to avoid the punishment inevitably waiting for him back at Headquarters but he quickly chased the notion out of his mind. The consequence of avoidance would only be more pain. Ultimately he would bite the bullet and accept what punishment was already awaiting him.

With these thoughts swirling around in his head Kame settled down onto his sleeping mat and stared into the fire as he descended inch by inch into a shallow but restful sleep Under the shelter of the fallen and the unyielding, a familiar place for his spirit. The harshness was almost comfortable in its familiarity and he accepted it with a rush of exhaled breath as he slipped down into sleep.

_Oh, Hello there._


	2. Snowblind

_'-up!'_

_'-ake up!'_

_'Wake Up!'_

Kame jolted awake from his place against the log, not quite sure what exactly had pushed him from the land of sleep back into the land of the living. He shook his still foggy head and stretched out limbs that were stiff and tingling from the awkward sleeping position he had chosen. A deep sense of danger suddenly stabbed into his gut like a knife and he nearly gasped at the force of it. His instincts were screaming for him to do something, so he did the only thing he had ever been trained to do. He unsheathed his swords and leaped up into a ready pose, muscles tensed in preparation to launch out in attack. Slowly, his sleep-addled mind began to process his surroundings and he found that what little sunlight that had leaked through the heavy cloud cover had all but disappeared and the snowflakes had transformed from dainty crystals to thick projectiles, flying through the air in random patterns known only to them, constantly changing direction. A low howl echoed through the forest and a gust of wind hit Kame like a kick to the face, stinging his cheeks like frozen fire and making his eyes water desperately for relief. While his suit kept his body at a comfortable temperature, it could not protect any exposed skin from the fury of the elements and Kame was suddenly very awake.

A glance around his small campsite revealed that everything was covered in a layer of snow, including himself. Another gust of wind roared through the trees, disturbing the delicate dance of the snowflakes and transforming it into a deadly frenzy. Kame felt his stomach sink to his toes it was so heavy with dread and he strained desperately to see beyond the trees a few feet away from him, but the view remained an indecipherable sea of white punctuated by the occasional shadow of a tree fighting to stay upright under the force of the wind.

He had woken up in the center of a full-fledged blizzard.

“Kuso.” Kame breathed out at the sky as if cursing the spirit of the storm itself. He swiftly sheathed his swords and dug up his supplies from where the snow had gently blanketed them in the night. He put on his breathing mask once more, no longer wary of the chemical warfare so commonly used in Shredder’s conflicts with his enemies, but rather in the last-ditch hope that it would shield his face and provide some fleeting warmth.

All it took was one step towards the river path that he had been following the days previous and another stab of danger buried itself in his chest. He gasped in a breath and snatched the map out of his pocket. It was crumpled from use and planning but Kame had marked his route so that he would avoid the high peak area. But every one of his instincts, and maybe something else, screamed that his original path had become treacherous.

“Kuso!” He cursed aloud again and frantically scanned his map. He was just near the Adirondack state park and if he moved inland he might be able to find a stocked ranger station that he could wait out the storm in. The journey would be long, and difficult in the snow, but the storm seemed to be settling in for a long stay, and the last thing that Kame wanted was to die in a snowstorm. It was not his idea of an honorable step and he was sure that succumbing to the weather would mean the loss of his honor. He shook off any lingering doubts, as well as the snow that lingered on his still form, and began decidedly moving inland towards the state park and the mountains. He was pleased to note that instead of a painful reminder of danger, the feeling that had pierced his chest not even moments before turned warm and encouraging.

He was on the right path.

Kame had been walking for hours through the thick snow that was only growing thicker with each engorged snowflake that settled onto the pile when exhaustion forced him to take a break and eat. He found a large boulder to rest against and he huddled up to its side for shelter from the merciless wind. He opened his pack and searched around for some of the rations that he had packed for the trip. Without helicopter transport, Kame had realized that he would have to engage in a certain amount of foraging for food. He sighed inwardly when he found various containers of cooked rice and barley that he had meticulously saved up until this point.

He had a couple of packets of dried fruits and vegetables left but he was sorely lacking any serious protein. He satisfied the hunger gnawing at his stomach with a packet of rice and dried fruits, eating slowly and in small bites in an attempt to trick his stomach into thinking that it was filled by the snack. He knew that it would not last long. He drank heavily from his canteen, wincing at the bite of the cold water as it met his warm insides.

He took another few moments to rest in the now suffocating quiet, the winds of the blizzard fruitlessly battering the boulder he was taking shelter behind in a futile attempt to assault him once more.

It took Kame a significant effort to rise off of his knees and stand on legs burning from exertion against the forces of nature. He forced himself to begin walking again, only to find his pace further slowed by the increasingly unsteady terrain of forest paths. The only consolation was that the increasing density of foliage seemed to quell the howling wind the further he traveled into the overgrown wilds.

Without anyone to maintain the park under Shredder’s rule, the forests seemed to have reclaimed their land, concealing well-worn paths with reaching patches of green, effectively doing their part to erase the human presence. Kame still managed to scout out the spider veins of paths that made it slightly easier to traverse the unforgiving landscape. He lost count of the amount of time a rock or stray root hidden under the layers and layers of snow, which now made it up to his shin, attempted to trip him up so the snow could swallow him whole. Kame weathered each stumble, each painful reminder that most of his path was hidden from him, with as much grace as an exhausted turtle with the combined weight of his pack and his shell pressing against his back.

Finally, the world transformed from an angry white to a dark grey as the day faded away into the night and the storm raged on regardless. In fact, the menace of the storm grew with the onset of darkness. The wind picked up into a constant howl of unadulterated fury as it battered the tree branches heavy with snow, and pushed Kame in whatever direction it so desired, often multiple at a time. When the wind once again propelled him into another tree trunk, the bark scratching angrily at his cheek, Kame decided that he had to stop for the night before he found himself in deep trouble. He looked around for shelter, moving closer to the base of a nearby rocky mountain in hopes that he would find a cave or rocky overhang.

Just when he was beginning to consider finding a snowbank to dig a snowcave, he caught sight of an opening in the cliffside. He trudged his way over to it and found it just wide enough for him to slip in. Once he made it into the bigger antechamber of the small crevice, Kame discovered just enough room for him to make a small fire and a bed for himself.

Before his energy could completely give out, Kame rolled out his sleeping mat and set up a makeshift fire pit. Throughout the day he had been collecting dead wood for this particular purpose and now removed the extra weight from his pack to add to his fire. Once his kindling was neatly piled in a formation that would help maintain the fire he attempted to light it.

His fingers shook with anticipation as he struck his flint over and over again, watching the sparks attempt to latch onto the wood but eventually dying out. As his frustration mounted, his grip on the piece of steel and the flint began to tighten until his fingers ached with the intensity. Kame shakily took a deep breath and tamped down the ire that arose as a result of the culmination of bad luck that he seemed to be experiencing on the tail end of his mission. With one last strike, the sparks took hold of the wood and slowly burst into life in a small fire.

Kame abandoned the flint and steel in the general direction of his pack and huddled close to the small fire, soaking up the heat radiating from it. The enclosed space quickly warmed into a comfortable haven under the influence of the fire and Kame felt himself relax back onto his sleeping mat. He set about making a makeshift stove over the fire and carefully placed the last of his protein, a can of mystery fish. He measured out a small portion of the rice into a bowl and waited as patiently as possible for his meal to finish cooking.

The smell of cooking fish wafted all around him, tantalizing his senses and promising food to his stomach, which had been rumbling insistently for half of the day. As if sensing the impending sustenance, his stomach renewed its protests and sent shooting pains through his abdomen as punishment for his careful rationing. His laser focus on the fish slowly cooking over his meager fire was momentarily redirected to the little entrance to his crevice-cave as a particularly furious howl echoed through the night. He could see little beyond the cave entrance beside the hysterical swirl of snow as the wind took out its anger on the steadily falling flakes. The storm was strengthening as if the night had awoken the beast of it and snow was quickly building up outside. Kame frowned in disappointment when he realized that this would mean he had to sleep in full gear and extinguish his fire if he didn’t want the smoke to suffocate him. Sleeping in full gear was distinctly uncomfortable but he would suffer through it to remain warm through the night. The storm let out another howl that seemed to echo down to Kame’s very bones and he quickly retreated to his fire and the meal that, by the grace of the spirits, was finally finished cooking.

In his eagerness to eat the tantalizingly meager meal he snatched the metal tin off of his makeshift stove, ignoring the way his skin tingled with what should have been the sensation of burning. Kame ignored the tingles as he had been trained to and practically inhaled his food. His training in resistance had been the most extensive of any other recruit because of his unique mutant physicality. Master Shredder himself had even bestowed upon him the honor of testing his resistance to poisons. The had sparred for nearly an hour, his master wielding poison blades before he had collapsed from exhaustion and the mild effects of dozens of different poisons. Kame was trained to resist poisons, electric shock, intense heat, and sedatives. He had failed his training in resistance to cold as a consequence of his reptilian DNA. It was a shame that he carried with him to this day, and a reason he suspected that his master had chosen to test him to return to base in this winter storm. It was a test that he was determined to pass at all costs.

His food was gone all too soon, and although his stomach was sated he could feel a lingering emptiness that told him he was nowhere near full, merely nourished for the time being. Kame soaked up the warmth of the fire for as long as he dared before smothering it with a generous helping of snow that was quickly gathering up around the entrance. Killing the flame felt like he had extinguished any warm feelings that his hot meal and shelter may have arisen in him. In reality, he was still in unfamiliar territory, facing the elements, an enemy that never grew tired, the could never be killed. He knew that it was by a mere chance of fate that he had yet to meet any danger besides the cold on this mountain path. He was at the mercy of the wild and if he wished to live he would have to fight and hope that he was spared.

With that final thought, he settled on his mat and stared up at the stone ceiling as he waited for the inevitability of sleep to overtake him. Time passed by slowly as he tried to calm his mind, which was suddenly more active than it had been all day. In the past, he had found that merely closing his eyes and hoping only encouraged his wayward thoughts, so he stared at the blank stone above him and slowly purged all of his thoughts from his mind. It was a long process, but soon he found himself reveling in the blank slate that was his mind as his eyes started to droop and his limbs took on a familiar heaviness.

Kame was inches away from sleep when he heard them.

Whispers. 

Like little pinpricks of sensation they pushed at his empty mind as if trying to gain entrance but lacking the ability. Kame furtively closed his eyes and tried to convince himself that the whispers were the sound of the wind and the storm but the whispers resisted his attempt at logic and pushed again at the barriers of his mind. Kame felt his stomach sink to the floor and he quickly sat up, wrenching his pack from where it had been propped up as a makeshift pillow for his head. His fumbling fingers took a few moments to find the correct pocket, his thick fingers shaking with increasing panic when he found an empty pill bottle. Unable to accept the reality of his situation, Kame yanked it out of the pocket and shook it desperately, praying that he would hear the clacking of pills jostled by the movement. His heart was pounding so hard in his chest that it felt like it was making its way up to his throat out of sheer panic. A chill sang through his bones and he dropped the pill bottle onto the floor where it rolled away into the shadows, useless and forgotten.

Kame closed his eyes and tried to measure his breathing into a meditative rhythm but the whispers interrupted him each time, insistently pushing against the edges of his mind as if demanding that he acknowledge their presence, an empty promise of peace. He had had the voices in his head for as long as he could remember. As a young recruit, the voices had been his only friends. Their little whispers were like a friend to the lonely turtle and they had remained his special secrets until he had developed his ability to meditate and access the spirit realms. It was then that the whispers were finally forming actual words. They were faint as if someone was talking from far away and he could only hear the barest hint of a conversation. But he could understand them. 

He had made the mistake of telling his sensei about the voices and from that day forward he had found his mind in the hands of one Baxter Stockman. Years and years of ’treatments’ had taught him to fear not only his sessions with Stockman but also the very reason he was there. In the last ten years, Stockman had grown bored with his voices and on the orders of the Shredder, he had devised a medication that suppressed the voices so that Kame was once again alone in his mind. It had been strangely isolating in the beginning, and while a large part of him missed the comfort of those presences in his mind, he eventually grew used to pushing the feeling deep down into the abyss in which he hid every other feeling that his Master deemed weak.

The voices were a weakness. And now, in the middle of the greatest test of his strength and resilience as a ninja, they had returned. Unable to banish them and unwilling to understand them Kame sat in the darkness, staring at the fading embers of his fire and battling himself deep into the night.

Completely blind to the world around him, he sat haunted by his own fear and stubbornness, his only salvation the rising of the sun and the next day of struggle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whooo! Nearly 3000 words later and I just continue to torture Leo (It's kinda my modus operandi). Anyways, I wanted to post this note because I need to assure you that Leo is not crazy and the voices he hears are in no way related to a mental illness. All will become clear with time but in the meantime the wilds are nowhere near done with our Leo. Everything has to get worse before it can get better....right?
> 
> Please comment and kudos it gives me LIFE


	3. Frostbitten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That old turtle luck flares up again without fail.

Kame had been staring into the darkness of his inner eyelid for what felt like a small eternity. The exact moment the sun broke over the mountain and washed the bleached valley in a soft golden light, the last whisper of the voices that Kame had been battling all night drifted off into a distant hum in the back of his mind. Kame breathed a sigh of relief that sounded suspiciously like a sob and threw himself up onto his feet. The sudden motion made his vision swim and he pressed a steadying hand to the cold stone wall of the cave as he regained his equilibrium. A wave of exhaustion reminded Kame that he had never actually gone to sleep the night before. He had spent the night staring at the stone ceiling until his vision blurred and his eyes burned. Then he had closed his eyes and begged whatever spirits would listen for sleep. He was already weak from the cold and his own hunger and he couldn’t afford to add sleep-deprivation to the list. But the universe had been stubborn in denying him and he remained unable to banish the voices that bounced nonsensically around in his head.

Kame blinked rapidly as he struggled with his sluggish nictating membrane as it reflexively drew across his eyes to protect them from the sudden intrusion of light. Once he had regained control over his reptilian reflexes, Kame pushed his exhaustion down into a place in his mind that he has designated “To Be Worried About Later” and began to pack his meager belongings. As efficient as he was, Kame was ready to leave in minutes, the weight of his gear distributed around the familiar weight of his own shell and his camouflage once more in place over his envirosuit. 

Kame cast one final glance back at the lone pill bottle that sat abandoned on the cold stone floor. The stinging reminder of his failure chose that moment to resurface in his mind, this time accompanied by the physical reaction of hot stomach acid in his throat. Despite his impeccable physics control as he swallowed down the emotions and bile, a sleepless night of worrying came with physical repercussions that he couldn’t pack away for later. He quickly turned his back on the traitor of a pill bottle and with a bracing breath Kame stepped out into the still, blank slate that was the forest in the aftermath of an all-consuming blizzard. 

Kame walked along the half-buried path, once more able to determine the direction of the nearest town now that the world wasn’t consumed by a wall of flurrying snow. A persistent pounding had taken up residence in his head, most likely originating from the sheer force he had willed to quiet his mind. As he picked his way through the fresh snow Kame relished in the quiet of the forest and the newfound quiet in his mind. 

Exhaustion was not a foreign sensation to Kame, he had often been forced to remain awake and fighting for hours on end to train his endurance. He had lasted the longest of his training class in the exercises, a success that he attributed to his carefully cultivated iron will. From a young age, he had been inspired by the untouchable coldness with which his Master controlled his empire and had aspired to emulate it. With the voices chemically suppressed Kame saw fit to lock up any sense of innocence he may have possessed. As he grew he had learned to lock away other emotions and traits that his Master seemed inappropriate for an elite ninja to possess. He was successful in keeping these undesirables imprisoned, all except failure. No matter how hard he tries to hide it, his Master always saw it in him. Kame knee that it lurked in the dark corners of his mind, his failure, and he feared it above all. Failure meant the loss of everything that his Master had given him. Failure was unacceptable, inexcusable. Kame could not fail Master Shredder, and if he did he would end his dishonor before his Master saw fit to see him disposed of.

With this new determination, Kame pushed away his exhaustion and surged through the snow, edging along the outskirts of the fortress that was the Adirondack Mountains. The weak tug of curiosity behind bars tantalized him with the wonders of what could rest nestled in their protective embrace but Kame tightened his fists at his sides, allowing the pulsing pain of the pressure drown out the unwanted temptation. 

The gentle river that Kame followed mirrored the path of a highway long since abandoned by the humans who had once inhabited the area. Those who were not captured and enslaved by Master Shredder had fled the northeastern part of the country long ago. Nature had wasted no time in seeing fit to reclaim the asphalt river, breaking it apart and burying it until it was near recognizable. Kame avoided the crumbled remains at all costs, preferring the protection afforded by the thickness of the forest rather than the apparent ease of the road. While he would be free of the obstacles of the forest and his journey would most likely commence with greater speed, the road left him exposed and vulnerable to any passerby. Whether they be Foot or not, Kame was wary of anyone that he might encounter. Humans or mutants not aligned with the Foot would no doubt be hostile to him, and though he was confident in his ability to dispatch any obstacles that strangers may pose, Kame wished to avoid any messy situation that may arise from conflict. Encountering the Foot had become all the more complicated since his ‘punishment’ had begun. The Foot was a ruthless organization that boasted a loyalty only to their Master and any squad would not hesitate to kill him if they thought him a failure or recognized his high stature within the clan hierarchy. Kame was alone. 

He had always been alone.

Around late morning nearing the afternoon, Kame felt a tell-tale stirring in the back of his mind that felt something akin to the needles of pain that shot through a waking limb. His jaw immediately tensed and his teeth ground together painfully as he braced himself for the effort of fighting back the voices. The sensation remained sluggish and weak for long enough that Kame almost relaxed his jaw as he picked his way through a particularly stubborn thicket of brambles that barred his path. An insistent pricker finally pierced his bodysuit and the tiny spark of pain shot through Kame’s nerves and straight to the back of his mind where the voices were lazily murmuring. The pain seemed to shock them awake and suddenly Kame was trapped in a bramble bush as well as a maelstrom of mental activity. The voices were stronger, more urgent and Kame felt like he was drowning in a sea of words that he could not understand as wave after wave hit his mental barriers, barely giving his tired mind a moment to recover and rebuild the crumbling walls. With an outward yell of effort, Kame yanked himself free of the brambles and pushed back at the words with a surge of annoyance equal to the urgency coming from the voices. The voices immediately cowed to him and Kame felt a burst of amusement out of nowhere. He stopped in his tracks and stood frozen in the snow, staring at nothing and searching desperately for the origin of that emotion. He had not felt amusement or humor since he was very young and the warm sensation was uncomfortably foreign and strangely comforting at the same time. But his carefully trained mind rejected his instinct to enjoy the sensation and sought its origin out with a single-minded intention to DESTROY.

And then he found it.

The amusement was coming from the voices themselves, radiating out from their growing corner in his mind like the rays of the sun. Kame shrank away like an animal burned and dread began to pool in his stomach. His connection to the voices was growing stronger, evolving beyond whispered nonsense into shared feelings and sensations. As the connection strengthened the voices would become stronger and his ability to understand and reply to them would bloom once more. It was an experience that Kame dreaded deeply and he exerted more mental effort to mute the sensations to a soft hum rather than a bursting sensation. The voices remained unintelligible whispers for the time being, but it would only be a matter of time and his waning strength against them before they developed once more.

Once more burdened with the mental taxation of repelling his unwanted companions, Kame set off at a much more labored pace towards his destination. He walked for hours, only taking small breaks to hydrate and eat small portions of what little rations remained in his woefully empty pack. Kame was hoping to replenish his food and supplies in the abandoned town, but he dared not hope for anything beyond that as he did not possess the luck of finding a vehicle or another form of transportation. His intense pace was steadily wearing away at his stamina as he rushed his progress towards the small town. He was racing the sun as it slowly fell from the sky towards the horizon in an effort to spend the night in a more stable shelter than what he could improvise in the wintry forest. Kame would reach the town before nightfall while maintaining a tight leash on his voices. There could be no room for error.

As the sun neared the finish line Kame drew closer and closer to the abandoned highway, searching for some sign that he was approaching civilization. He stayed on the edges of the road, never quite touching asphalt just in case he needed to quickly conceal himself in the foliage of the trees that lined the broken road. The temperature was dropping steadily and Kame felt the change deep in his very center as his body fought not only exhaustion and fear but also the natural enemy of the cold. He gritted his teeth in frustration and pushed on down the road towards a sign up the road. Still standing tall and partially concealed by overgrown foliage stood a worn welcome sign that signaled the end of this leg of his journey. Kame studied the faded image the sign depicted of a lone human standing on a mountaintop with the sunset as his background. Below the image, the peeling paint read: Welcome to Keene Valley.

Kame felt relief wash over him and with renewed energy, he pushed beyond the sign and into the outskirts of town. As he passed, he surveyed the dilapidated buildings that stood like sentries of a forgotten civilization, waiting for their occupants to return and breathe life into them once more, or more likely: the slow death that time held in store. A few of the structures looked safe enough to spend the night but Kame was too low on supplies and time to waste a moment exploring. He would settle in the local grocer or pharmacy, somewhere where he had a higher chance of finding supplies. He pushed on until he came upon the once quaint town square, the streets now littered with abandoned cars and random debris that was all that remained of the hasty exit the residents had made.

The sun shrunk into a sliver and the sky turned purple with the approaching night as Kame cautiously picked his way through the streets until he spotted the grocery store. He drew a single katana and silently sprinted across the parking lot towards the rustic building. The doors leaned partially off of their hinges, creating an opening big enough for most animals and people to squeeze through. Kame tensed in anticipation as he slipped through the opening with little difficulty and found himself in the dark belly of the corpse of a cute country store. He slipped past the cashier stations and made his way through the aisles, clearing them one by one without even a glance at their contents. The food was worthless to him if something or someone was waiting to take his life among the aisles, the store seemed unassuming but there was a significant chance that he was not alone in the store. If he was lucky, the aisles would all be cleared and he could pick through the food in enough time to find a suitable shelter.

Kame was not lucky.

The grocery was indeed occupied, he learned rather suddenly when a black bear lumbered out from behind the meat counter. The bear was not full-grown and was obviously spending its first winter away from its family. The bear let out a bellow that shook the building and charged over the counter at Kame. It was only by the grace of his inhuman speed that Kame was able to spin out of the bear’s warpath, his katana scoring a long gash along the bear’s side as it burst past him and slid slightly on the polished tile of the floor. It recovered quickly and kame’s heart pounded fiercely against his plastron as he found himself leaping out of the attacking bear’s path once more. However, the animal was smarter than it seemed and it learned from his last dodge, this time it swung out with one of his massive paws and sent Kame flying back into some shelves with the full force of its might. Kame wheezed for air as his plastron throbbed and his lungs tried to catch up with the frantic calls from his brain for oxygen.

Oxygen came just in time for the bear to crash bodily into him, sending them sliding through the debris of what had remained on the shelves. The bear locked his powerful jaw around Kame’s boot and swung him bodily across the floor as if trying to shake it loose. Kame cried out in pain and reached blindly for his katana where it lay scattered among a slew of toiletries. Just as his fingers brushed the hilt the bear moved up his body and began clawing at his carapace, scoring long scratches in the thick chitin. Kame clenched his teeth in anger and braced himself against the blows as he struggled to get a grip on his weapon.

The bear grew frustrated with his shell and clamped down on Kame’s leg once more, its sharp teeth piercing his thick layers to dig into green muscled flesh. Kame held back his scream of pain and stretched his arm to its limit reaching for his katana. It was at that moment that he forgot about the voices and his careful control over their loud feedback broke. Panic filled his head, blinding his usually sharp instincts, growing sharper as the pain in his leg mounted. Kame screamed out in frustration at that and yelled angrily into the store at no one in particular.

“I will not let panic control me!” With a flood of adrenaline, he grabbed his katana and twisted around to bury it in the bear’s back, just between its shoulder blades. The bear groaned out in pain and lurched away from Kame, giving him the perfect moment to drag himself away to a shelf. Using the metal structure as leverage he hauled himself to his feet and withdrew the twin of the blade deep in his attacker’s back.

The bear roared in fury and rushed Kame again, slower this time, but still as deadly as before. As it came up on the injured Kame it reared up onto its hind legs and swiped at the mutant turtle with the force of a cannon. Kame was sent flying once again, but this time he controlled his fall and maintained his grip on his katana. He felt the force of the blow echo through his body and his head rung painfully in response, demanding that the pain stop. The bear pursued Kame’s thrown body, roaring out in victory as it lunged with its gaping maw towards Kame’s throat.

At the last minute, Kame surged into a sitting position and threw his katana with all of the strength left in his body. The blade flew through the charged air like a bolt of lightning in a storm, striking true in the bear’s chest where it sunk into its heart and killed the beast instantly. The animal’s bulk instantly collapsed on the tile and the store was still and silent once more. 

Kame let out a short labored breath as he stared vigilantly at his foe, waiting for it to rise once more and resume its vicious attack. When the animal remained motionless for a few more minutes Kame slowly got to his feet and stumbled over to his foe. With a great effort, his arms burning and his head pounding, he rolled the animal and removed both of his blades from the body. Dutifully he wiped the blood from his blades onto the bear’s fur and resheathed his weapons. His protective gear was ripped over his injured leg and a growing wetness originating from the vulnerable skin of his side let him know that the bear had gotten one last strike before its death. Kame pressed a hand to his side and fire immediately flared from the wound and spread through his entire body with such speed that it left him breathless and shaking. He dared not look at the wound yet as he stumbled over to a display of bath towels and selected a fluffy white one that he proceeded to duct tape to his shell so that it was pressed up against his side.

His makeshift bandage job was slow and arduous as the slightest touch to the skin of his side sent his head spun and made bile rise in his throat from the sheer force of the pain. He knew that his sides were vulnerable and he had always protected them in a fight, but his exhaustion coupled with the toll of the weather and the stress of his voices had brought his guard down to a dangerous and sorely lacking level. Once the towel was secured Kame put the duct tape in one of his many pockets and retrieved the bedraggled remains of his pack. The bear’s teeth and claws had torn straight through the normally durable material and his meager stash was spilling out into his arms as he stumbled towards what seemed to be an employee office in the back of the store.

Kame practically collapsed through the doorway, somehow pulling the door closed behind him. As soon as his mind registered that he was in a secure area, his last vestiges of strength disappeared and he could do little but crumple back onto the ratty couch pushed up against one wall. Kame’s world went hazy and little black spots danced across his vision with increasing frequency until he was finally dragged under into a fitful, pained subconscious state where his mind fought bravely to keep him awake.

Images and sensations flashed through the darkness as his mind tried to reconcile the pain he was currently feeling with his vast history of torture-training: Images of him kneeling in front of his master for hours, the sting of a barbed whip as it sliced through his skin, the sear of fire on his skin, and the following shock as his hand was shoved into ice water mere seconds later. The paralyzing ache that flowed through his body as a poison slowly killed him from the inside out while his master dangled the antidote inches from his grasp. The pounding ache of bruises and broken bones as he lay curled on his bed after his first beating in the dojo.

This pain he was feeling was merely a new one in a long list of atrocities that he had survived. He would survive this pain. He would not fail.

Kame reached out for his fading consciousness as he faded into the darkness of sleep and a new memory suddenly surfaced, one he had never seen before. He was surrounded by fire, the roaring almost deafening to his inexperienced ears and he searched the blaze wildly for something, anything… for them. But he found only flames. He called out in anguish but the sound was cut off by a choking cough as his young lungs filled with noxious smoke. His eyes watered and he screamed in anguish as his vision blurred and panic began to fill him. Suddenly he saw a figure running towards him, its hand outreached for his.

Kame desperately reached his chubby arm out for the comforting touch of a familiar stranger but he was suddenly yanked away and the harsh laughter of his master rang out, merging with the fire in an unholy dance of evil. Kame kept reaching out for the figure but it had stopped running and was slowly backing away from him, from the flames, from his Master until it turned away and disappeared into the darkness. Kame let out an anguished sob-scream and fell into sleep as his Master’s voice rang through his head like the toll of a death bell.

**You are mine now, little Kame.**


	4. A Will for Survival

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whooo boy this is the longest chapter I think I have ever written but it was necessary because you guys deserve to see the rest of the boys and so does poor Kame. I had to get this one out so I spent all night typing away in my own little world. Thanks for your support it really helps motivate me to write these stories.

Sensation came back to Kame in fragmented pieces that overlapped but didn’t quite fit together. He was laying on something lumpy and covered in a worn fabric that scratched against his over sensitive skin painfully. The sharp tang of blood filled his nostrils as he took in a shuddering breath. A distant roar rumbled through his sensitive ears. He shifted position slightly as if to get away from the sound and pain lanced through him like a hot poker.

The world came back slowly as Kame carefully sat up and examined himself and his surroundings. His enviro suit and camouflage layers were torn to shreds around his mangled calf and the soft skin of his side where plastron met carapace. The bleeding in both areas had tapered off during the night as his body healed, but his clothes were now soaked in blood and his one protection from the winter weather was compromised.

Kame cursed to himself and slowly got to his feet, taking measured steps to the door as he got used to the pain. He leaned against the wall for a moment as the waves of pain from his injuries assaulted his ability to think clearly. His already muddled thoughts could barely withstand the onslaught. Kame took in a breath and applied his focus towards the searing agony that was his leg. Using a technique that had become second nature to him in acclimating to his Master’s demanding expectations, Kame sapped away the pain and sensation in his leg until it was numbed and reduced to a slight sting of a paper cut. The wood paneling he was resting his head against creaked as he used it to right himself until he was standing normally. He would have to adjust his gait for the numbness in his leg and the persistent pain of his side, but he was once more mobile. His pain taken care of, Kame considered the remains of his pack. The fabric was torn open and supplies were spilled haphazardly on the grimy carpet of the small office. With a sigh and a wince that he tried to suppress, Kame knelt and began repacking the bag, carefully avoiding pockets beyond repair and duct-taping those that could be saved. After a few minutes, he sat back, sweating slightly from the slowly fading pain and the effort. The pack, which was now more duct tape than fabric, would last him a couple more days at least.

The next thing to tackle would be supplies and a new bandage. The improvised towel pressed to his side was soaked through and no longer effective other than to remind him how grave his injury truly was. He did not have the luxury of seeking medical attention so his field training and experience would have to do. Kame slung his pack over the opposite side of his injured one and opened the office door to limp out into the grocery store.

The stink of blood was strong and Kame avoided the area where the bear carcass no doubt still lay. There was nothing more for him there. Oddly enough, the rumbling sound in his ears had grown louder and had a familiar tone about it, but Kame found himself drawn away from pondering whether it was real or not by the sudden resurgence of the voices in his head. They were stronger, he could almost make out words from the loudest one.

He pushed it away best he could, but was ultimately unsuccessful, as the loudest voice broke through his distracted barriers over and over again. The voice was stubborn that was for sure. Kame snorted and rolled his eyes as he limped over to the aisle with basic medical supplies and went to work on his wounds. First, he tightly wrapped his leg in bandages and duct-taped his damaged boot together. Once he was satisfied with that he went about bandaging his side.

All the while the rumbling and the voices clashed together and grew louder, closer.

Kame did his best not to agitate the deep wound on his side but the sear of pain refused to abate as he bandaged it and painstakingly wrapped his entire torso to keep the bandage secure. He was fighting through a wave of nausea brought on by the sheer wall of pain he hit when he tightened the bandage when the rumbling reached a crescendo and Kame realized that he very much recognized the sound. It was the engine of a vehicle.

Someone was here. 

Danger. 

The voices swirled in agitation, clouding their corner of his mind and lashing out almost desperately at his careful crumbling barriers.

Kame froze as the rumble of the engine stopped right in front of the grocery. He could see nothing from his vantage point but he could hear even the smallest of noises. The engines cut off and there was a chorus of doors opening as multiple people exited the vehicles. A rough voice with a thick Brooklyn accent yelled out at the group, his voice cutting through the cold silence in a manner that instantly grated on Kame’s eardrums. He had to wrack his brains to remember the English lessons his Master had insisted that he attend when he was young. Kame and the entirety of Master Shredder’s empire were required to speak only Japanese, his Master’s native tongue. But the Elite Foot ninja were instructed in the many other languages of their foes. Kame preferred the elegance of Japanese to the harshness of American English, and the speaker was doing nothing to improve his opinion.

“Alright let’s stop here and check for any more supplies. Keep an eye out for survivors and da Foot. If you sees any of those ninja bastards shoot with extreme prejudice.”

There was a chorus of replies that Kame could not make out but he was already analyzing the store for some way of escape, tuning out the rest of the conversation. His eyes lit up when he caught sight of a back door and with no delay, he heaved himself up from the floor and pushed all of his pain away from his awareness. He was still weak but at least now he could move relatively unhampered by sensation.

In a mad scramble of self-berating and fear Kame once more gathered his things and forced himself to abandon the near gold-mine of supplies for the danger of the city streets. He slipped out the back door and immediately made a break for the closest tree line. The sound of his boots beating the concrete was in time with his pounding heart as he dashed with all of the strength he could muster towards the mountain reserve that loomed to the west of the dormant town.

Looking back, he would not be able to explain why he had chosen the path towards the formidable giants nor why it had felt like safety. He would be unable to admit that somewhere along the way instinct had mixed with a word that rang through his head in a bright cheery voice that felt like pure sunlight.

Home.

And so Kame ran. 

he wasn’t sure how long he ran for as his mind was blank except for his need to get away from the humans who had interrupted him. His side was burning constantly as he ran through the uneven terrain of the forest. His survival skills had awoken long enough for him to find another body of water to follow deeper into the wilds. His numbed leg was steadily becoming more of a hindrance as the effort he put into dulling it had to be increased because of the rough terrain. He could barely feel the sensation of the snow that seeped through the tears in his clothing, the thud of his boot against rock, or the drag of his weight through the thick snow.

After he had lost sight of the town altogether, Kame allowed himself the luxury of collapsing up against the snow-dampened trunk of a large tree. Every part of his body burned from the pain of exertion, his breath stuttering and gasping as spittle gathered in his mouth and fought to slide down his throat. His lungs burned from the effort of inhaling and exhaling and his muscles felt like they had been through a wringer. Kame allowed himself a few minutes to regain equilibrium naturally before he forced himself back upright and took a few hesitant steps forward.

His exhausted, ailing body screamed out for mercy but Kame’s will was too strong and he merely gritted his teeth and set off at a more sedate pace. Slowly his pounding heart softened to a steady beating in his chest and he no longer feared that it was trying to stage an escape through his plastron. His breathing evened out as the frigid air created the sensation of breathing ice rather than oxygen. His body cooled down significantly with the meager assistance that his enviro suit could offer. But Kame was nowhere near recovered.

His agitated side blazed with pain and a heat that was almost certainly an early warning sign of infection setting into his wounds. Through what he could feel of his leg he was almost certain that the sickly heat was consuming his calf as well. Kame cursed again, aloud this time so that the harsh sound echoed around him. He felt a small amount of emotional release from his actions, but mostly he felt childish and undignified.

What would his Master think of him now? He had run from a fight, injured and scared like a child. At that moment he had not acted like the ruthless Elite ninja that he aspired to be, but rather a scared mutant stripped down to his base instincts. His Master would have slaughtered the entire human pack without so much as a second of hesitation. Then again, his Master would not be in this situation to begin with. His Master has abandoned him in the wilds to test his ability as a warrior. And Kame had failed. He was not worthy, dishonored down to his soul. He was not fit to return to his Master’s side, he no longer had a place among the Foot, he no longer had a place… anywhere. 

Suddenly Kame’s steady pace slowed to an uncertain shuffle as he looked around for some reassurance that he was going the right way, that he was on the right path to regain his honor. The impassive wintry landscape gave him so much sign. Instead, it buffeted him with an icy wind that cut through his suit to his bones, making them lock up on reflex.

Kame was tired.

The bittersweet temptation of the cold slowed his blood and promised the unfeeling bliss of sleep. Kame’s legs wobbled weakly and his mind clouded over with exhaustion that had snuck up on him so swiftly that he was unable to shake it off before it began to consume him. A grunted protest left his lips as he slumped to his knees and braced his shaking hands into the packed snow so that he was on all fours. He felt like a puppet whose string had been cut without the power of his sheer stubborn will to return home.

He closed his eyes and fought weakly against the perilous sleep but he felt it fluttering around the edges of his awareness, taking over like a hungry parasite, sapping any energy he may have had left.

And then Kame heard it.

_Keep going!_

The bubbly voice shocked his eyes open and he lifted his head so fast that his neck protested the motion. His blue eyes searched the surroundings carefully, his body slowly awakening as his paranoia lit his instincts ablaze once more.

He remained staring at the endless maze of trees and snow around him but no one emerged. The words echoed around in his head like a call in a cavern, elusive, and difficult to find their beginning.

_You’re almost there!_

The voice came again and Kame felt a burst of bright, effusive joy in his mind to accompany the words. His eyes widened and he scrambled backward in a desperate attempt to escape the source of the voice. But it was a futile attempt.

The voice in his head. It was speaking to him. And he could understand it.

A part of him, long-buried and forgotten, blossomed under the light of the voice and tried to remind him how happy he had once been when he got to speak with the voices. It was quickly drowned in the suffocating fear that felt like it was drilled into his very Katra.

“ _Leave me alone!_ ” He called out hoarsely, but the voice ignored him and continued to release bubbly little encouragements into his mind so that his feelings warred between the foreign light and happiness and the familiar darkness of fear. Despite his inner conflict, Kame was now awake enough to realize that staying still was extremely dangerous, lest his physiology gets the better of him. He rose to his feet and set off once more.

Kame found himself unable to focus fully on the path he took as he became absorbed in mustering up the effort to move and to stubbornly battle the voice that refused to be silenced now that it had once more found its voice. He walked for nearly an hour before he was able to pull himself from his internal struggle to observe the stumbling path that he was following. He was walking along the bank of a winding brook, now headed southeast of Keene Valley and deeper into the vast forest. Kame stopped momentarily at the edge of the water and brought what little water he could trap in his cupped hands to his mouth. The water was colder than the air and he coughed as his throat protested the cold as it slid down his throat and settled in his stomach like a stone.

He shook himself and once more set off along the brook, content to follow his instincts and the water for as long as he could. He felt like he was traveling with someone now as the happy little voice chattered in the back of his mind with no sign of stopping anytime soon. He tuned out the majority of the jumbled words that the voice threw at him, but he occasionally made out a few details that indicated that the voice was talking about some kind of food with a devotion most would dedicate to a deity.

His fear ebbed as another two hours of his slow trek passed and the inane chatter of the voice began to slowly convince him to reconsider his notion that these voices were a danger to him. Sure, the one voice that was talking was a little distracting and confused him to no end, but it kept him conscious and distracted him from the pain as well. The voice laughed in his head about something that Kame wasn't paying attention to, and the happiness was almost enough for Kame to let a smile slip through his blank facade.

Almost, but not quite.

A couple of hours into his journey, Kame suddenly found himself deviating from the path of the brook towards the summit of one of the many mountains that surrounded him. Kame had followed the strange deviation for nearly an hour before he realized that he could no longer hear the strange gurgle of the brook not smell the scent of the water. When he stopped and actually looked at his surroundings he found that he was boxed in by trees and the ‘path’ that he had been following was not a beaten path. He was in the middle of the woods, at the base of an unknown mountain, with absolutely no idea where he was going.

It was then that he came to a realization. The voice wasn’t just chattering at him for no reason, it was distracting him, leading him. And just like that, the fuzz of contentment that had been lazily swirling in his mind thickened into suspicion. Kame spun around, trying to catch sight of the brook he had been following before he had fallen prey to the voice’s ‘innocent’ suggestions. But it was to no avail. The only indication of the path that he had been following was his own deep tracks.

Kame felt a stubborn determination rise in him and with an inaudible growl, he took the first few steps down the mountain and back towards the brook. Immediately the voice reacted, protesting and trying to convince him to turn around, but Kame remained steadfast in his new decision to ignore the voice and do the exact opposite of what it wanted him to do.

_Wait! You’re almost there!_

Kame shook his head to dispel the voice, but its frantic protests just grew louder and stronger with each step he took. His head was ringing slightly from the force of the voice in his head but Kame was nothing if not stubborn and he continued to take the labored steps back down into the valley.

_Stop stop stop STOP!!_

Suddenly a splitting pain arced through Kame’s mind like lightning and his vision flickered black as his body responded to the shock of foreign mental trauma by shutting down any other function other than whatever it took to stop that pain. Kame heard screaming and with an almost detached calm, he recognized the agony-filled voice as his own. Just like the many times before when he had been subjected to extreme pain, Kame detached almost entirely from his body.

From somewhere outside and above himself he watched his body fall into the snow and writhe in the uncontrolled jerking of a seizure. It was always odd, looking down on his body from another plane of existence, but Kame had mastered meditation and with it, the ability to effectively escape his pain for a short time. If he stayed away from his body too long he would be lost to the other plane of existence, never able to fully reconnect with his earthly body.

Almost a full minute after the seizing began it slowly tapered off and Kame returned to his body. As he settled into his form, sensation rushed back into his awareness like the tide. Kame flexed his hands with a grown, his muscles tight and aching from the involuntary clenching and tightening that they had just gone through. His head was pulsing with a slowly fading pain and all of the voices were swirling around nonsensically in a panic.

Kame easily pushed them aside and glanced back down the mountain where he had been headed when the seizure had hit. He felt bile rise in his throat alarmingly fast and he heaved bodily as the little food and liquid that had been left in his stomach unceremoniously decorated the snow. He dry heaved for a moment before shakily pushing himself away from his vomit and crawling slowly up the mountain until he once more laid down in the snow to catch his breath and recover.

Kame was stubborn, but he wasn't about to risk the wrath of the voice again by trying to go down the mountain. He was scared. He hadn't expected there to be any physical repercussions from his newfound connection to the voices, but now that he had been proven wrong he felt vulnerable and exposed. He felt like he wanted to recede into his shell and hide from whatever cruel test that this forest had been for the past few days.

_I’m sorry._

The usually bright and loud voice was quiet and scared when it spoke. Kame just sighed wearily and got to his feet, refusing to reply to the voice but allowing it to lead him once more up the mountain. As he trudged up a steeper and steeper incline, Kame’s mind swirled in deep confusion as it tried to mediate the destruction like a relief team after an earthquake. Kame turned away from the frazzled disorder that was his mind and focussed solely on the invisible path that the voice was leading him on. His only relief was that the voice had descended into a sullen silence and seemed content with just leading him.

After a few minutes, Kame found his path cut off by a sheer cliff face that rose out of the ground like one of Master Shredder’s skyscrapers. Kame reached out slowly and ran his bare hand along the surface of the cliff face, marveling at the smooth cool stone. Leaning back, his eyes tracked up the sheer stone until he could no longer do so. He could see what seemed like a ledge before the cliff continued up to the peak of the intimidating peak. There was a quiet, almost royal, dignity to the mountain as it stared down at him, simultaneously demanding his respect and daring him to conquer the very summit.

At that thought, the voice spoke up again, some of its cheer once more oozing out of its words like syrup.

_Up you go, dude._

“ _Seriously?!”_ Kame found himself gasping out to no one in his shock, but he quickly shut his mouth with an audible click when he felt a painful pressure building in his head. Upsetting the voice was a dangerous endeavor, and it wasn’t like he hadn’t climbed buildings like this back in New York City. He reluctantly shrugged off his battered pack and dug out his shuko and ashiko from one of the pockets. He quickly strapped the most basic of ninja climbing tools onto his hands and boots, Kame threw his pack back on and searched the cliff face for a good foothold. He allowed the voice to push him farther along the sheer stone until he found a suitable natural path. 

Kame took a couple of deep breaths in preparation and slowly released the numbing effect that he had held steady on his leg until this moment. He would need full movement and control of both all of his limbs if he was going to climb such a cliff. Kame gritted his teeth in pain as the sensation of his pulsing, burning wound filled his nerves once more. He let himself become accustomed to the pain for a moment before carefully applying the same technique to his side. As one of his sources of pain released and faded, he let out a breath from between his clenched teeth and nodded to himself. It was time.

He pulled himself up with the first hold and cleared his mind of everything but the cold stone underneath his fingers as he began his climb. The path was fairly simple as the ground grew farther and farther away and the mysterious rounded edge of the ledge grew closer and closer. Despite the cold temperatures, Kame’s face was beaded with sweat and he occasionally had to rely on his shuko because his hands were so damp.

As he neared the top section of the climb, he was shocked out of his single-minded reverie by a dainty snowflake landing on his hand as he reached for the next hold. Kame looked up at the sky in panic and cursed himself for not being more observant of the weather. Sometime during his climb, stormy clouds had stealthily covered the valley for as far as the eye could see. And now they were delivering their payload: snow.

His turtle luck was true to form today.

Kame swallowed the pit of dread that clogged up his throat and resumed his climb with a renewed vigor as he worked to beat the snow before it could cover the mountain in a new layer of hazardous snow. Panting aloud with the effort and tearing up reflexively from the pain in his leg, Kame knew he was a mess, and suddenly he was unsure that he would survive this bout of bad luck.

He shook off his doubts as much as he could but as always they settled in the back of his mind to whisper and steadily chip away at his severely beaten self-confidence. Kame pushed himself to the limits as he battled the weather and the mountain to reach the ledge. The close he got to the top the farther apart the holds were and the smoother the rock became. The surface was worn by weather and time to a perilous curve right before the safety of the ledge. As Kame rounded the curve and the cliff became less sheer and more of an aggressive upwards angle, he found himself almost crawling on his stomach as he relied on his shuko and ashiko to maintain his hold.

Unfortunately, the flatter surface eased the accumulation of the fresh snowfall and Kame found himself feeling through the white slush for the next handhold. And then it happened. He had reached the top but the last handhold was just barely out of reach and he would have to jump for it, completely sacrificing any security on the stone that he already had, in hopes that his shuko would catch the hold and not slip in the slush that covered nearly every inch of the stone around him.

Kame pressed himself to the cold stone with a sudden rush of panic and he felt his limbs freezing up and refusing to move under the influence of his fear. He gave himself 10 seconds of fear, counting out each one slowly under his breath as he closed his eyes and searched for his center.

In the center of himself, he found the resolution he needed just waiting to be tapped. Kame dug in with his feet and tensed his already aching and shaking muscles for the inevitable jump. Then his 10 seconds were up and his eyes flashed open as he reached up with his left hand and pushed himself forward with all of the strength left in his legs. Kame saw the handhold coming closer and he stretched his arm as far as it could go, waiting for it to catch on the stone.

For a few terrifying moments, he was weightless, without anchor on a cliff. A fall from which would kill him instantly. Then his shuko dug into the stone and his fingers scrabbled for purchase and he slid down the cliff face a little. Then he was pulled taut as his hand caught the ledge and he found himself dangling, supported only by the strength in his one hand.

Kame let himself bask in his success for exactly one breath before he tensed his arm and slowly, arduously pulled himself up onto the ledge. Once he was close enough to the edge he swung his other arm up to help pull his heavy body until he found himself laying on his back in the snow, panting harshly, once more on solid ground.

Kame rested for a few minutes, every inch of him either aching from exertion or screaming with the red hot rage of pain. He stumbled forward through the thick outcropping of trees towards the strong urgings of the voice. He kept walking until suddenly he found himself face to face with another cliff face. His entire body sagged and he felt the frustrated burning of tears in his eyes as he realized he would have to climb again.

He followed the voice’s urging along the wall of stone, assuming that it was leading him towards another path of holds. But as the trees thickened, the stone wall he had been tracing with his hand, partially out of idle appreciation and partially for support, disappeared. 

A tunnel.

Kame found himself at the mouth of a well-concealed, monstrous, tunnel.

Relief flooded through him as he realized that he would not have to free climb anymore but it was quickly replaced by apprehension as he gazed down the tunnel and saw a dim light glowing deep in the darkness. There was someone here.

Reflexively Kame drew his twin katana and the weight of the familiar blades in his calloused palms was comforting. As if a switch had been flipped he suddenly transitioned into warrior-mode both physically and mentally. He tuned out the excitement of the voice and crept forward into the tunnel with all the stealth and skill of the Elite that he was.

The tunnel was long and wide and as Kame traveled deeper inside the walls were lit with dim electric lights connected by black wires secured to the walls. Kame followed the path with suspicious eyes and every single one of his senses was on high alert in the echoing quiet of the tunnel. The slightest sound would alert the occupants and could lead to a battle. Kame was not afraid to fight, but he was painfully aware of his current limitations as a result of his injuries and exhaustion. He was in a uniquely dangerous position should the occupants be hostile.

Eventually, the tunnel widened into a makeshift loading bay with one giant steel door at the far end of the room. Kame rushed silently to the door and examined it curiously. The steel was thick and old, obviously, it had been here for a long time. Part of Kame wondered if it had ever been opened, let alone opened recently. His questions were partially answered by a glowing keypad next to the door which looked modern and was scratched and worn slightly from extended use.

So this…. whatever this was, was indeed inhabited.

He was inspecting the seal of the door when he felt the tingling in the back of his neck that told him that someone was coming up from behind him. Kame swung around like lightning and brandished his katana at the human which had emerged from another set of heavy elevator doors that Kame had missed in the shadows.

“ _Who are you?”_ he demanded harshly but the tall human just smirked and mockingly held his hands up in surrender.

“Whoa, buddy don’t shoot.” He snickered and Kame realized that the man must not speak Japanese. Before he could switch languages he was being grabbed from behind by multiple humans. Kame roared furiously and struggled fiercely in their hold, knocking two off with well-placed head butts before both of his arms were captured in a hold he would have been able to break if he were at full strength but in his current state were too much for him.

The human he had spoken to earlier approached, swinging a baseball bat in his hands jovially. He was tall and well-muscled under his winter gear but his face was covered by a worn white hockey mask that made him look more like a serial killer than a hockey player. The dried blood on the mask did nothing to improve that image. His dark hair was long and hung haphazardly at his shoulders. It wasn’t until he spoke that Kame recognized the heavily accented voice as that of the human from the grocery.

“I don’t seem to remember puttin’ out da welcome mat this mornin’. Maybe I forgot.” He chuckled at his own joke and suddenly lunged towards Kame so that their faces were mere inches apart. Kame didn’t so much as flinch, the human’s poor attempt at intimidation was nothing compared to what he had endured for his entire life. The human raised his mask to reveal a brutishly handsome face with an annoyingly cocky smirk spread over it.

It wasn’t until he was up close that the human finally caught sight of the tattered Foot insignia on Kame’s jacket and his dark eyes widened and his mirth was swallowed by a deep burning fury and his smirk twisted into a sneer.

“Looks like we got ourselves a Foot boys.” he declared and the humans holding Kame grumbled angrily, their grip turning punishing rather than restraining in the space of a breath. Kame held in his wince with all of his will power and faced the lead human head-on, his electric blue gaze defiant and challenging.

“Well ya sure as shit came to the wrong mountain buddy.” The human spat at Leo’s feet and the turtle saw red at the blatant disrespect. He lurched to his feet, surprising his captors enough that he could head butt the mouthy human before he was bodily shoved into the stone floor.

“Fuck! Ya down it now ya bastard!” The human growled as blood poured down his face. Kame just smirked victoriously at him and spat out a rebuke in Japanese.

“ _You have no idea who you are dealing with little human.”_ The human obviously didn’t understand his words but that did nothing to mitigate his anger.

“Night night motherfucker.” He growled and brought the end of his bat down on Kame’s head hard enough to make him see stars as his vision blackened slowly. Before he succumbed to the sinking feeling of unconsciousness Kame heard the human speak to the others.

“Take this Foot scum to the Pit.” he commanded and then as an afterthought he added, “And somebody go get Raph.”

Kame latched onto the name as it slipped out of the human’s mouth and danced around in the darkness of his inner eyelids, echoing in his mind as he finally slipped into the dark depths of unconsciousness.

_Raph. Raphael?_


	5. It's You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A reunion of sorts

Kame was thrust back into consciousness for the second time to a day that felt like a year’s worth of punishments. This time his head throbbed loudly and painfully, his vision blurring slightly with each painful beat. His side screamed in renewed agony and his leg joined the chorus. The careful numbness that he had cultivated throughout his journey had evaporated with the comfortable darkness he had been wrapped in and so rudely pulled away from. Now the world was a confusing blur of consuming pain that he could barely fight through to make sense of what was happening.

He leaned his head back against the smooth stone of the wall he was clumsily propped up against. His body was slumped at an angle that sent little extra twinges of pain to his brain but he didn’t dare move for fear of upsetting his already unsteady tether on consciousness. Kame closed his eyes and began to steady his erratic breathing. Each deep and steady breath stretched his side painfully and made his head pound in response, but Kame refused to give in to the pain just yet. He could vaguely sense others in the room with him and being as he had no idea who had attacked him and where he was, he needed to stay alert.

Kame waded through the flooded muddled depths of his mind for what felt like an eternity, rebuilding his carefully constructed walls brick by brick. The once impenetrable structures had been worn down by the combined assault of waves of pain and the confusing resurgence of the voices in his head. The voices were completely free of their bindings, but they weren't reaching out to Kame so he ignored them in favor of focussing on his pain. Kame had spent an arduous lifetime dulling the pain from a roar to a disgruntled growling that was contained by hastily patched walls. It was only when he was satisfied with how mobile he was that he allowed himself to resurface back to reality. 

When he became aware once more of his surroundings, Kame felt a distinct change in the atmosphere of his cell. Where once there had been the underlying tension of a single guard the room was now alive with the fire of deep fury and the harsh echoes of his captors’ voices. The rush of sensations bounced around his head like a gong of warning and Kame gritted his teeth, tensing almost imperceptibly at the assault to his senses.

He felt raw and a little exposed after the deep dive into his subconscious and a thick weight of spiritual and physical exhaustion threatened to pull him under once more. Kame forced himself to stay conscious as he listened in on the not-so-subtle argument his captors were having.

“-‘m just saying that this piece of shit doesn’t deserve this treatment just cause he looks like- “

“Watch yer mouth Spike!”

The hoarse gravel voice of this 'Spike' was alight with burning anger and Kame could practically feel the way that he spat out words. He would need to be wary of this one, there was a hatred deep within him that would not be easily suppressed by a chain of command.

“FIne! I should at least get a crack at interrogating him now. Wouldn’t want him to get too comfortable.” Kame felt his fingers twitch for his swords and it was only in that moment that he realized that he had been stripped of his backpack, weapons, and his Foot camo gear and was now lying in nothing but his torn envirosuit. He was vulnerable.

“No way doofus. Nobody talks to the Foot scum until Raph gets here.”

Raph.

The second voice was by no means sympathetic to Kame but he was obviously loyal to this Raph person. His loyalty would serve Kame well for the time being. Spike grumbled something unintelligible and Kame decided that if the invocation of Raph’s name was enough to tame the beast, even if only for a few moments, he must be some authority figure.

Raph?

Kame felt like some part of his mind was stuck on the name like a broken record that could only sing out one name. The name echoed in his mind in shades of fierce red that lapped against the deepest and oldest of his walls. The red urged him to follow it into the depths of his mind but renewed yelling from Spike and his companion pulled Kame back to the land of the living.

Slowly, Kame allowed his blue eyes to blink open and though his vision swam and blurred at first, a few more tried got the world to clear up and reveal itself. Kame found himself surrounded by the rounded walls of a stone cavern, the hard floor covered in fine dirt that was almost soft to the touch. Kame’s gaze followed the noise to the cavern opening where two strange figures were too absorbed in each other to notice him.

One was a human man, large and muscled in a plain white t-shirt, ripped jeans, and a faded black leather jacket. His face was set in a defiant frown and resting on top of his head was a familiar white hockey mask that sent a throb of pain through his head. This was the human that he had encountered in the tunnel. Kame felt a little satisfaction when he saw the bandage over the human's nose which was now a light purple.

The other figure was much larger than the human, hulking in his size as he leaned angrily against the opening of the cavern. He was another turtle, though very different from Kame physically. His skin was an almost blue shade of aqua, unlike Kame’s own emerald hue. His face was brutish in that his lower jaw was large like a caveman He was wearing what used to be a plain white t-shirt that had been mutilated by the spikes emerging at odd angles from his shell. The sleeves had been ripped off of the shirt it what Kame supposed was supposed to fit his motif. He was wearing dark pants secured by a gaudy belt buckle in the shape on an S with a skull and crossbones superimposed over it. He looked like a thug.

He must be Spike.

As he watched Kame slowly flexed his fingers and toes, working out the pins and needles that remained, stabbing gleefully at his nerves as they fled. He ignored the odd sensation, he knew that with each slight movement his body was awakening and he grew more dangerous.

“How much longer do we gotta wait Casey?” Spike all but whined and Kame noted the human’s name was finally revealed. Truly these guards seemed like amateurs, openly, and unknowingly feeding their dangerous captive information.

“I told ya-!” The human stepped forward in frustration and Spike’s beady little eyes seemed to gleam with excitement at the prospect of things getting physical. Unfortunately for Kame, that one step was enough for Casey to catch sight of his electric blue gaze that he had been told almost glowed in the darkness.

“Holy shit he’s awake!” He exclaimed and scrambled for a blunt object from the golf bag slung over his back. He slid out a baseball bat and held it threateningly, but Kame only had eyes for Slash, who was now advancing upon him with a darkness in his eyes.

“Welcome back Foot scum. I've been waiting for this moment.” He cracked his gargantuan knuckles as he spoke, his fingers twitching in anticipation. Casey looked conflicted as he stood at the mouth of the cavern, but he remained where he was. Kame frowned slightly but it was an inevitable reality. His time was up and now the beast was unchained.

Stubbornly Kame pushed himself to his feet, his muscles burning in protest as he leaned slightly back against the wall for support. He was in no shape for a fight, but that didn’t mean that he would give in and let this other turtle kill him. Kame clenched his hands into fists and gave Spike his best arrogant look. If this beast succumbed to his anger he would be vulnerable to the cool-headed Kame, or at least that’s what he hoped would work in his favor. If not, he was just bringing more pain down upon himself.

When Kame said nothing in retort Spike’s grin twisted into an angry sneer, “Oh so you think you’re too good to talk to me huh? That’s okay, I like it when I have to do things the hard way.” He chuckled lowly and Kame fought the shiver that wanted to travel down his spine. He would not be swayed by this mere thug.

“ _You do not scare me beast,_ ” he said calmly, noting with satisfaction that his use of Japanese confused both Spike and Casey. Good, the language he had grown up speaking could be an asset to him here.

“Speak English you bastard!” Spike yelled in frustration but Kame just stared impassively back at him, his eyes glinting in a dangerous way that the brute ignored. 

With a roar that made the air vibrate with its intensity, Spike launched himself at Kame like a speeding train. Kame waited until the last moment, then jumped to the side, rolling gracefully until he righted himself into a ready position, his calculating gaze watching as Spike pushed off of the stone wall and searched the room for him like a crazed animal.

“ _Pathetic,_ ” Kame called out, adjusting his stance to take weight off of his leg. He could feel his makeshift bandage shifting and the sensitive edges of the wound began to split open once more. He had little time left.

Spike roared out in fury and charged him again, his eyes blazing. Kame dove off to the side again but this time Spike threw out his arms as he charged, catching Kame in the plastron. The sheer force sent Kame flying through the air until he hit the back wall of the cavern opposite the entrance.

Any breath left in Kame’s lungs was forced out of him at the impact and he felt his side wound open and begin to gush blood. Kame crossed his arm over his body and pressed the blood-soaked towels further into his wound, gritting his teeth as he rose to a crouch. He coughed out a painful wheezing breath and tried to stand but his vision swam and his limbs went numb when he tried. Kame practically collapsed into the crouch again and retreated silently into the cover of the shadows.

Spike cursed at Kame’s disappearing act and squinted his eyes in an attempt to scour the depths of the shadows. Kame flexed his advantage and stealthily scaled the wall, remaining in the shadows as he moved to perch upon the light fixture that hung low on the high ceiling. He pressed a hand into his side and forced his swimming vision to right itself when Spike’s body language suddenly changed.

There was a commotion coming from outside of the cavern, multiple people were making their way to the cavern and they weren’t being quiet about it. Casey had stiffened up at his post in the entryway and shot Spike a look that practically screamed ‘Told you so’. For a moment Kame considered going on the offensive and dropping down onto the brute, but all such thoughts stopped when the voices got closer.

A buzzing had begun in the back of his mind at the first sign of reenforcements but as the noisy newcomers got closer the buzzing in his mind got louder and more insistent. Kame froze in his perch as the new figures burst through the entrance and a peculiar tingling started washing over his entire body.

There were four figures, one a human woman who immediately went to Casey and punched him hard on the arm. Surprisingly, Casey just looked down in chagrin and did not retaliate. Kame felt his brow arching in interest but his mind refused to focus on the woman for too much longer. The other three figures were just so much more **important**.

They were three turtles. Turtles exactly like him.

For a second Kame’s heart stopped and an unfamiliar yet nostalgic emotion rose up in him as his eyes hungrily devoured the sight before him. The first one to step forward barked out to Spike in a harsh, deep voice that sent an unexpected feeling of warmth through Kame. He was wearing what looked like black military uniform pants, biker boots, and a red form-fitting shirt that hugged his plastron and shell like a second skin. He was also wearing a red bandana over the top of his head. The bandana looked worn and had a faded Japanese Kanji embroidered on it. It was obviously well-worn and loved.

“Yo Spike. What the hell?” Red growled and the much larger turtle reluctantly gave up his search for Kame in the shadows and sheepishly regarded Red.

“Sorry Raph. I guess I got a little carried away with the prisoner.”

Raph

Raph just glared and one of the other turtles spoke up in a slightly nasal voice loaded with biting sarcasm. He was taller than Ra- Red and was wearing dark slacks, a purple button-up, and a slightly dirty white lab coat. He was also wearing a pair of glasses that had been broken and repaired multiple times, magnifying his warm brown eyes. He had a piece of purple cloth wrapped around his forearm over the fabric of the lab coat. It too was worn yet well-taken care of. Kame decided that he would be known as Purple.

“A little? The whole compound heard you roaring like a maniac. What is this Jurassic Park?!"

Purple had spirit. 

Kame smirked at the little growl that the comment got out of Spike but the bigger turtle made no aggressive move towards Purple. Interesting. Purple must have some authority as well.

“Somebody want ta tell me what da hell is goin’ on here?!” Red demanded angrily and turned his attention to Casey. The other turtles seemed to follow and they all looked expectantly at the fidgeting human.

“Well…uh… we were still unpacking from the supply run and then we got a signal that someone was in the main tunnel. We went ta investigate and we found a Foot ninja-“

“A FOOT NINJA!” Red exploded and reached for a pair of sais in his belt. He began twirling them restlessly. Kame shifted in discomfort upon the light fixture but remained hidden, biding his time for the perfect moment to escape.

“You wanna tell me why ya didn’t just kill him on the spot? And why ya decided to bring him into our home?!” Red grabbed Casey by his shirt and shook him a couple of times. Casey had the intelligence to look ashamed but not enough to shut up.

“Well, he’s kinda… special? I dunno we thought that you might wanna see him..?” Kame winced at the angry look on Red’s face but was equally as surprised when the turtle released Casey and took a step back. Red crossed his thick arms over his chest and let out an angry huff.

Kame leaned forward, almost intrigued by the show of control from the short-tempered turtle. He found himself wondering why Red did not physically punish Casey like Master had done to Kame every time he had failed. The partially healed scar from his last failure tingled at the mere thought of his Master’s special form of punishment. The turtle’s restraint was oddly comforting where in any other he would have only regarded it as a weakness.

Why was he reacting this way? He was their prisoner. They were his enemies.

Weren’t they?

“If he’s so ‘special’ then I guess we had better take a look at him.” Purple sighed and fiddled with an electronic device attached to his wrist. He looked bored outwardly, but Kame could sense an excitement coming off of the purple turtle that betrayed his indifferent mask.

“Where is he? Where is he? WHERE IS HE?!”

The third turtle burst forward like a fountain of boundless sunshine, eagerly bouncing around the other two turtles in his excitement. He was young, younger than the other two, and possessed an innocence about him that immediately softened the tension that had overtaken Kame at the sudden movement. The young one was wearing a pair of dark basketball shorts that hung loose on his short form. On top, his outfit became an eclectic collection of colors that probably shouldn’t go together but were forced together by the sheer manic energy of the young turtle. His tank top was decorated with a faded skater logo and was covered in various splotches of paint. Overtop of that he wore a hideous Hawaiian shirt that sported practically every color of the rainbow in its tacky pattern. he too wore an orange bandanna around his neck where it was joined by a pooka shell necklace. 

The odd thing about the younger turtle though was the bright green cast that decorated his right arm, already decorated by one scratchy signature. He was injured and yet they older turtles had brought him into the holding cell of a dangerous stranger.

How odd these turtles were. And yet he felt strangely connected to all of them somehow. His disobedient heart strained inside his chest, demanding that he go to them, that he join them. Kame reigned it in enough not to give away his position but the thought of revealing himself to these turtles wormed its way inside his brain and began to blossom. Without his usual measured thought and logic, he began to strongly consider it.

All he knew was that something in him needed them. A part of him that had lain dormant for as long as he allowed himself to remember.

“For fucks sake where is he?” Red asked exasperatedly as he gently shoved Baby Orange off of where he had been perched on Red’s shell. Purple intercepted the young one and held tight to him. Orange practically vibrated in his grip.

“Well, that’s the thing, buddy…” Spike shrugged helplessly and gestured to the shadows that Kame had initially disappeared into.

“Spike was fighting him and he pulled some ninja shit into the shadows.” Casey cut in on Spike’s rambling and Kame thought that Red might actually explode with the fury that built up in him.

“WHAT?!” The young one cut in with a despairing cry that cut to the very core of Kame in a way that nothing ever had. Suddenly his heart was ready to leap out of his chest in favor of going to Orange. Kame held himself back by the skin of his teeth but he didn’t know how to combat this new vulnerability and he could feel himself slipping towards an illogical and risky idea.

“You lost him? B-But we gotta find him.” Orange turned to Red and Purple, his eyes widening adorably and his bottom lip quivering on the verge of tears. Purple turned to Red and the two seemed to be having a silent argument that Orange watched with that same pitiful expression. After a little while and no result, the little one turned the powerful expression on the room and Kame received the full brunt of it.

He couldn’t take it anymore.

Kame jumped down from the light, landing on the floor in a painful crouch with a solid thump. The noise was on purpose, as everyone’s attention suddenly turned to him. Red, Casey, and Spike glared at him and brandished their weapons and Purple looked suspicious but curious. But Kame was not looking at them. 

He could not tear himself away from the sheer wonder that shone out of Orange’s baby blue eyes. The innocent joy and happiness he saw there thawed his frozen gaze just enough to invite the little one in. The young one stepped forward slightly and reached a hand out for Kame as if ready to pull him into an embrace. He whispered just loud enough for Kame to hear and be mesmerized.

“Dude...It’s you.”


	6. Wild Child

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A not-so-brief look at the other end of Kame's voices.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOF! This took a lot longer than it should have and I owe you guys an apology for it. This has been sitting on my computer for months and months but I'm an essential worker and we've been slammed up until now. I have spent this entire week from the moment I get home to the moment I go to sleep writing this monster of a chapter that I hope makes up for my little sabbatical. I will be updating Shed a Light next but I have not abandoned any of my stories. I plan to go back to all of them really soon. Thanks for sticking with this story.

Hamato Michelangelo had never been alone. From the moment he opened his eyes he had been irrevocably connected to three other souls. His first memory was of three distinct colors: red, purple, and blue shining so bright and filling him with such warmth that they drowned out the darkness of his early years. Somehow, Mikey knew that the colors in his mind connected him to the most important people in the world: his family. 

As he grew he began to recognize the strands in his head and connect them to the turtles that he loved the most. The red one burned bright with a passion and protectiveness just like his big brother Raphael. When he pulled on the red strand Raph’s brow would crinkle in the funniest way and he would hover over Mikey like he was expecting something to happen to the youngest turtle. It was like he could trigger the fierce protective instincts of his older brother with just a thought. Despite the overwhelming temptation, Mikey tried not to trigger it that often. 

The purple strand was the solid support of Donatello, brimming with knowledge that occasionally overflowed to Michelangelo. It was the only way to explain that sometimes when Donnie was particularly immersed in something, his knowledge would leak over to Mikey. Like recently, when Mikey suddenly had the physics knowledge to execute the ultimate skateboarding trick and then just as suddenly he did not. Manipulating this strand had almost given his genius brother a heart attack and had resulted in a trip to the infirmary. How was he supposed to explain to his frantic brainiac that he had broken his arm executing a move that was there one minute and gone the next? 

And then there was Blue. Blue had been his favorite, always there to envelope Mikey in his calming, soothing energy. Whenever young Mikey had needed him Blue was there. Until he wasn’t anymore. He only remembered flashes of the night that everyone refused to talk about or pretended not to remember. All Mikey knew was that there were fire and screams and then they were free… but Blue was gone. And his life moved on with a significant hole in it, a hole that no one ever spoke about.

The third strand was a dull grey and limp as if it had been cut off at the source and now floated aimlessly in the void, searching for the connection that it once had. It had been this way for the last 13 years. No matter how Mikey prodded at it, cradled it, pulled on it, or screamed into the void where the connection had been severed, he never got anything back.

Until a couple of days ago.

He had been laying in bed, barely awake and dreading the next attack from his alarm, when it happened. He casually took stock of his connections to his brothers, prodding playfully at the sleepy strands, only to receive sluggish flares in reply. Out of habit, he looked for Blue’s dead strand, the hope that it would glow again long since muted by years of disappointment.

And that’s when he saw it. A faint, almost fragile blue glow coming from a single strand. Mikey physically sat up in bed as a potent combination of shock and sheer unadulterated hope hit him like a punch to the gut. All the air left his body as he hovered around the delicate connection. Mikey couldn’t see where it ended off in the darkness and he didn’t dare touch the single strand for fear that it would snap. All he could do was stare at it and will it back to life with sheer hope.

After what felt like only a few precious seconds but was actually half an hour Mikey was jolted back into reality when Raph burst angrily into his room and shook him. It was only then that Mikey realized that his alarm was blaring at full volume and probably had been for a long time. He couldn’t find it in him to care when he was still drowning in happiness from his discovery. It felt like his world was spinning on a completely different axis. Suddenly he was living in a brand new and yet familiar reality. One with Blue in it!

Ignoring the thunderous look on Raph’s face and the beginnings of a grumpy tirade that fought for air space with his alarm, Mikey launched himself at his brother and clung to him like his life depended on it. Mentally he gripped the red and Purple strands with all the desperation he felt towards Blue. Immediately he felt Raph’s arms tighten around him, signaling that it was okay to let the torrent of tears burst down his cheeks in a river.

Briefly, he registered Donnie rushing into the room and exchanging a muffled conversation with Raph. Mikey remained clinging to Raph with his face buried in his older brother’s neck, soaking up the comfort and the strangely nostalgic glow of blue. After a few minutes, he acutely registered his alarm shutting off, and Raph adjusting to sit on the bed as Donnie climbed onto his other side and sandwiched Mikey between them. Surrounded by the comfort of his brothers Mikey’s heart ached with such fullness and he wished not for the first time that he could share the mental connection with Donnie and Raph. But the two always brushed it off as his childish imagination and ignored it. As a result, Mikey could only go so far towards the other end of Donnie and Raph’s mental strands before he hit an invisible wall.

Eventually, his tears dried up and contentment with the safety of Blue’s tenuous connection settled his emotions. Slowly Mikey pulled back from Raph’s now damp neck and met the concerned gazes of his older brothers. His teeth ached from the force of him holding back what he really wanted to say.

_I found him! Blue is back! Our brother is alive!! We can be whole again!_

But instead, he choked out: “Bad dream.”

He accepted the promises of protection from Raph and the assurances that it was all the doing of his subconscious from Donnie without his usual protests. He just nodded and assured them both that he was fine now.

“I’m totally good dudes. No need to worry.” He practically sang out as he hopped off of his bed and began searching his various clothes piles for an outfit that fit his mood.

His brothers were left sitting on the bed, watching him in suspicious surprise. They glanced at each other and with uncanny twin speak engaged in a conversation with only their expressions. Normally Mikey would whine that he was being left out and it wasn’t fair that they got a special language and he didn’t. But this time it was different. Mikey had a secret communication too, with Blue. Even with just a single strand, Mikey felt a stronger connection than he did with Donnie and Raph. He might even be able to talk with Blue, to bring him here!

Mikey’s sunny smile brightened further, if that was even possible, at the thought. He slid on his trademark orange joggers, struggled into a black tank, and retrieved his favorite black bomber jacket that was covered in a veritable rainbow of paint splatter. Out of habit, he threw on a random assortment of necklaces from his pile and, most importantly, his favorite pair of sunglasses. The sunglasses were the most important part of the look because even though they lived underground and Mikey was rarely allowed to go outside and enjoy the light of day, they were cool. Satisfied that he looked his best Mikey slipped into his ratty skater shoes, grabbed his tricked-out board, and went running down the hallways and into the common area. He paid no mind to the fact that he had left two very confused brothers sitting on his bed, he had more important things to worry about. Like breakfast.

And Blue.

He subconsciously checked on the blue strand and when he found it intact an irrational wave of relief flowed over him. He felt a little dumb for worrying so much over a mental strand to a person he hadn’t seen for almost his whole life, but he couldn’t help it. This connection was special and he refused to let it go again.

Mikey returned to the land of the living just in time to avoid running into one of the mountain’s many citizens as she exited her room. Feeling giddy, he turned his dodge into a graceful spin so that he was walking backward.

“Morning!” He chirped happily at the petite Japanese woman as she leaned down and grabbed a basket of laundry from the room she was exiting. She hefted it onto her hip with little effort and gave him a fondly exasperated look.

“Good Morning Michelangelo-san.” 

Mikey spun around once more, this time tossing his skateboard on the ground ahead of him and leaping onto it. Now rolling through the hallways at breakneck speed, Mikey expertly weaved around the increasing number of people and mutants as the halls widened, then opened up into the vast cavern at the center of the mountain.

Their secret little society had been fortunate enough to find the abandoned army base hidden in the Adirondacks when he was just a child and he had grown up navigating the twisting tunnels of rock and metal. The center of the mountain was a vast cavern that had been intended as an aircraft carrier but was now the main hub of life in The Lair. 

The Lair was home to refugees of all types, a place where mutants and humans alike could escape the expanding cruelty of the Foot Clan Empire. They took in anyone they could find and still had room for more. There were whole sectors of living quarters that sat empty, waiting for the next round of newcomers to make their home there. The Lair came outfitted with its own electricity, water supply, and, thanks to Donnie and his team, a renewable source of food. The ‘Geek Squad’ had successfully converted several storage rooms into makeshift greenhouses that provided plenty of fresh ingredients. As the resident chef, Mikey was more than grateful for the fresh ingredients that Donnie and his squad provided. At the same time, he was obsessed with the salvaged food supplies that Raph and his ‘Jocks’ brought back from their raids. I mean it’s not like Donnie had the time or the willingness to figure out how to make gummy bears and sour cream and onion chips with their resources. And Mikey just couldn’t survive without them, it was impossible to even think about, so their food flowed from two sources.

Mikey weaved his way through the crowds of people that flocked around him, each with their own important task. They were totally like bees or something, all contributing to the hive.

Wait did that make Master Splinter the Queen?

Mikey stuck his tongue out in disgust at the image of his rat father in a crown and a dress, ordering them around. As he entered the mess hall and was engulfed in the sounds and smells of their enormous kitchen, Mikey let his happy place act as brain bleach. His poor, scarred for life mind would never forget the image of Queen Splinter, but it could be distracted away from it.

Distracted as he was, when an apron came flying through the air at him it hit his face with a solid _thwap_. Mikey pulled the apron off of his face and was met with the echoing chuckles of his kitchen crew and the rueful smirk of Murakami as he turned back to the dumplings that he was so lovingly crafting. Mikey expertly tied the apron around his waist and saluted his thanks to Murakami. He knew that the blind man couldn't necessarily see it per se, but the answering grunt from the old man told him that he had 'seen' his salute. Mikey got to work on the lunch preparations, manning the much-beloved pizza oven that he doted on like she was his child. In a way, she was, because when a supply run had first brought back a frozen pizza stash it had been love at first bite. From that moment on Mikey had been dedicated to cooking and perfecting the art of the pizza.

When Master Splinter had seen his youngest son’s newfound passion for cooking he had assigned him to work in the kitchens with Murakami. The old blind man had been a renowned chef before the Foot takeover and he happily agreed to mentor the youngest turtle. When Mikey was in the kitchen the boundless and often destructive energy that flooded through him was tempered and channeled into creating. Under Murakami’s gentle guidance, Mikey had grown into a chef that was on par with some of the culinary masters of the old world. However, they were all careful not to let Mikey know that, lest his ego become more unbearable than it already was. 

Mikey danced over to his station and thumbed through their meager collection of tapes, all of which he had heard a million times over. He was already dancing to an invisible beat and he quickly decided that it was a ‘Hits of the 80s’ kind of day. He pooped the tape into his ancient sticker-covered boom box and there was a crackle of sound before it began to boom out that classic 80s synth that never failed to get stuck in his head.

And so Mikey was swept away in his day, feeding their community and navigating the bustling kitchens to the best of an era long gone by. It would have been like any other normal day but every so often he would retreat into his own mind space in search of Blue, only to find that the strand was still too fragile and dormant to interact with. Each time Mikey pulled himself back into reality he felt a great part of him remained back with Blue, watching waiting, and hoping. He vowed that he would wait as long as it took, he would let Blue take his time because Mikey would do anything to have him back.

It took an entire day of Blue growing stronger but remaining silent and unreachable before Mikey’s patience reached its boiling point. 

It was a new record for him.

On the morning of the second day that Blue had been awakened, Mikey made contact. He had been laying in his bed, awake much earlier than usual, staring at the ceiling without really seeing it as he spoke to Blue. Since that first morning, he had been talking to Blue every chance he could get in hopes of well, anything really. So far the blue strand had remained cold and withdrawn, almost like there was an invisible wall between them. Despite this, Blue’s glow grew stronger every second and Mikey found that their connection was strengthening as well. He could sense that while Blue was not necessarily close to him, he was growing closer. Mikey wanted so badly to talk to him for real rather than talking at a wall of silence.

Mikey reasoned with himself that he had been remarkably mature and patient with this whole situation and Blue seemed much stronger than he had been on that first morning. What would it hurt to try a less gentle approach? His inner Donnie had scolded him for his lack of patience and care for the still fragile strand but his inner Raph was louder in its frustration that the strand had yet to reply to him.

And so in a moment of weakness spurred by his own curiosity and the rantings of his inner Raph, Mikey had prodded at the strand. Blue stirred slightly under his ministrations and Mikey could have crowed with excitement he was so happy. The strand fluttered slightly under his touch and he excitedly urged it to Wake up! Wake up! _Wake up!_

What he hadn’t expected was for the strand to push him back with a flicker of agitated electric shock, sending Mikey out of his headspace and scrambling out of his bed. His limbs tingled as he shook them out and did an awkward little dance around his room in an attempt to disperse the pesky tingles. He stared in amazement down at his still tingling fingers and then let out a loud crow of excitement, jumping high enough in the air to flip gracefully midair and flop back onto his bed.

“Holy Shell!” He yelled into his pillow, feeling about as giddy as a teenage girl. He sat there with his pillow over his face for a minute, marveling at the fact that Blue had actually interacted with him, even if it was to push him away. With his other siblings, every prodding created a reaction in them but Mikey never felt any kind of response greater than what he sensed on a daily basis. Still tingling from the reaction and assured that Blue was truly alive in the back of his mind Mikey leaped up, fueled by the electric sensation that fizzled through him even now.

He went through the rest of his day buzzing and jumping around with an unknown excitement that most people wrote off as his normal anticipation for the return of the supply run. Raphael and a security team had set out last night and were due back in a couple of days. Whenever this happened, Mikey always buzzed around ranting about all of the treats that he would gorge himself on once they got back. So his energy wasn’t out of place, just more silent than usual. Of course, Mikey was bursting with the need to tell someone about his Blue and the amazing steps they had taken just that morning but no one would understand, not even Donnie, genius that he was. He didn’t dare bring it up to Master Splinter, because the last time he had it had resulted in a special meditation lesson with his father that had driven him to a new level of boredom that he had never thought existed.

He shuddered to think about those hours of silence and thought. It had to be considered torture, there was no other word for it.

Mikey kept prodding Blue throughout the day, startling more than a couple of people when he suddenly jumped or cried out like he had been zapped or pinched. Mikey was still excited with every response but he could tell that Blue was getting weaker and his worry grew. He just seemed a little hungry and tired for now so Mikey’s worry was only skin deep, but the effects he felt went much deeper. He found himself snacking more than usual to satisfy a hunger that was not his own, nodding off, and shivering despite the strict temperature controls of the Lair.

When it had come time for bed that night Mikey had spent the few precious seconds before he fell asleep checking on his siblings. Donnie was awake and in one of his idea frenzies so Mikey just gave him a surface brush of affection to avoid being swept up in the insomnia that would no doubt capture his older brother. Raph’s strand had that odd fuzzy feeling that left a weird aftertaste in Mikey’s mouth and clued him into the fact that Raph was drinking with his group. Mikey rolled his eyes and turned his attention excitedly to Blue, whose strand was pulsing slowly with an exhaustion that made Mikey’s limbs heavy with sleep and the aches of travel. He chose to ignore the worry lingering in his mind and instead focused on the fact that his brother was coming to them, he was getting close. When he finally gave in to the call of sleep Blue still flickered with exhaustion and anxiety.

When Mikey came back to consciousness the next day felt like he hadn’t slept a wink. His movements were slow and sluggish as he clambered out of bed and stumbled over to his bathroom. Even a splash of cold water in his face couldn’t banish the tired feeling back to wherever it had come from. On the contrary, the exhaustion was now accompanied by that bone-deep chill that seemed to be living inside him for the past couple of days. It felt like he had spent the night in a snowstorm instead of his warm turtle nest of blankets and pillows. Mikey let out an audible groan as he brushed his teeth and shuffled into his closet to pick out whatever seemed the warmest. He ended up in a pair of his softest comfiest grey sweatpants, and an oversized (even for a giant mutant turtle) orange sweatshirt layered over his favorite Crognard the Barbarian t-shirt.

This time Mikey’s journey to the kitchens lacked the previous day's energy and the farther he got from the siren song of his bed the colder he seemed to get. His sleep-addled mind wondered when Donnie was going to fix the temperature controls in the mountain. Just because it was winter outside didn't mean it needed to be winter inside. The more awake part of his brain gravitated towards the deep glow of Blue, nestled protectively in his own orange glow. Mikey had been focussing more attention on Blue than he had on anything in his life and Blue's rebuking shocks had slowly transformed into a stubborn lack of reaction. Mikey had been disheartened by the lack of reaction from the Blue strand when he had prodded it throughout the morning, but he was an experienced pesky little brother and he would not be deterred.

So he poked and prodded at Blue throughout the day, sending an almost constant live stream of his thoughts towards the impassive presence. The tension finally broke when Mikey felt the phantom pricking of pain all over his skin. His scales immediately prickled at the odd sensation coming from a body that was not his own. Mikey felt an almost frantic concern at the first hint of pain, even if it was only an annoyance. He urgently pressed inquiringly at the blue strand, practically smothering the connection with his own concern. With a snap that Mikey heard in his head, the blue strand pushed him back so hard that Mikey lost his balance in the real world and found himself rocking on the floor, stuck on his back. He blinked in surprise for a minute before bursting out into loud peals of laughter. 

He had won! 

_Was I disturbing you?_ he asked the once again subdued strand which seemed almost petulant in its silence. His little brother skills never failed him when he needed them. They were like his superpower. He rocked back and forth on his shell for another second of breathless laughter before launching himself to his feet in an acrobatic jump that he could do in his sleep. But this time the world swam in front of his gaze and Mikey stumbled towards the pizza counter so that he could brace himself on something solid. By now he was attracting the attention of his fellow chefs and as quickly as he had been knocked back by Blue he was surrounded by concerned Lair citizens. The kitchen crew was a healthy mix of motherly/grandmotherly types, teenagers like himself, and the odd macho survivor with a not-so-secret passion for baked goods.

Mikey found himself surrounded by all of them as he leaned against the counter. A mutant mouse woman gingerly felt his forehead for a fever but frowned when she realized that Mikey's normal temperature was unique as a result of his mutant turtle DNA.

"Bea. I'm fine." Mikey whined when she fussed over him and ordered one of the younger cooks to grab him some water.

"Hamato Michelangelo." She warned him and Mikey immediately held up his hands in surrender with a charming grin. The dizziness was fading quickly now that he wasn't attempting anything too physically strenuous. She glanced wearily at his cast-encased arm and kept feeling his forehead. When a flushed young boy came running back with a glass of water she shoved it into his hand and glared at him until he chugged the entire glass. He dangled the now empty glass in front of the frowning mouse and Bea snatched it away from him.

"Alright, just take it easy Mikey, and tell me if you feel dizzy again," Bea commanded with a roll of her eyes when he deftly grabbed her hands and kissed it like he was paying courtesy to a noble lady. 

"Thank you, my lady." He smirked up at her and she couldn't help but smile back at him, amused by his ridiculousness.

"Yeah yeah." She brushed him off and busily ushered the group of cooks back to their stations. As quickly as the kitchen had stopped to check on him it once again came to life and Mikey turned back to his own station. Today he had been pulled away from his dear sweet pizza oven to that night's special station: Tacos. He ignored the niggling feeling that something was wrong and turned his limited attention span to serving the slowly growing line of dinner patrons.

Dinner continued normally for a few hours as the residents of the Lair flowed into the massive hall to eat. It was just like any other normal dinner shift and Mikey was in the zone loading up tacos and passing them onto the next station for garnish. He was whistling happily and some energy had begun to return to his aching limbs, cultivated by his sheer passion for cooking. Then a pain like Mikey had never felt hit him in the side and twisted around in his insides like someone was stabbing him. He immediately dropped the taco he had been holding and collapsed onto the tile floor in a writhing mass of pain. He knew that the shrill cries of pain that were echoing throughout the room were his but with mounting panic, he realized that they mirrored the cries of pain that only he could hear. Blue was alight with the burning fire of pain that Mikey only felt a hint of. And he was on the floor sobbing for relief. 

His leg had joined the pain party now and he kicked out fruitlessly as if he could shake off whatever pain had latched onto his body. It was to no avail and Mikey's vision swam as his brain descended into panic mode which was so not cool. He felt warm hands on his body trying to hold his still and find where the pain was coming from but Mikey just continued to cry out and to his shame, he pulled as far back from Blue as he could. He was feeling Blue's pain so his panicked mind decided that the farther he was from Blue, the less pain he would feel.

But it was like the horrific sensation had dug its heels in and remained pulsing through his side and leg with a vengeance. He could hear frantic voices through the fog that clogged up his brain but he couldn't quite make out what they were saying.

"-all Donatello! Now!" The authoritative voice was familiar and comforting but what Mikey truly latched onto was his older brother's name. He practically lunged forward towards the name but was kept pinned on the ground by several pairs of hands. Mikey didn't realize that he was now screaming Donnie's name over and over until that same voice, now soft with comfort and gentle hands stroked the cool skin of his head.

"He's coming Mikey. Just hold on okay?"

An eternity of pain later, his brother's purple-clad form burst through the crowd of faceless people around him and Mikey couldn't only look through his tears at the frantic eyes of his older brother.

"Donnie Donnie Donnie." He blubbered and reached for Donnie who quickly cradled him to his chest so that Mikey's snout was pressed into the warm skin of his neck. Mikey felt darkness seeping into the edges of his vision and he tried to stay awake but his body had decided that it was too tired to keep fighting his need to sleep.

"Hurts..." was the last thing he murmured against the warm skin of his brother's neck before he lost his battle and slipped into the painless bliss of unconsciousness.

* * *

When Mikey woke up once more he was laying on the cot in Donnie's lab, surrounded by beeping machines that he did not recognize and swathed in a soft blanket that made him want to cuddle down into the blanket and go back to sleep. He was alone in the room but Mikey recognized the worn chair next to his bed as recently vacated by Donnie. Any lingering panic of being alone faded with the reassurance that Donnie would be back. He relaxed back into the fluffy pillows and tried to sort through his fuzzy brain for his memory of what exactly he had done to land himself in the infirmary for the second time that month.

In a flash of phantom sensation, Mikey remembered Blue's pain and he immediately dove into the depths of his mind, looking for the place that he had hidden Blue's string in his panic. After searching for what felt like hours, Mikey found Blue's strand packed away in some unknown corner of his mind. He quickly brought it back to the forefront of his mind and winced slightly when he felt the steady pulse of pain that seemed to come from the dejected-looking strand.

He stroked it gently with his presence and was surprised to find that Blue responded almost unconsciously, brushing against him so that Mikey could feel the sluggish thoughts imprinting themselves on his own mind. Blue was in an unfamiliar place, in deep pain, and confused. Mikey wanted to smother the poor turtle (he knew that Blue was a turtle cause what else would he be!?) in his love but he hung back and allowed Blue to slowly work through whatever muddle of thoughts were in his brain. He could feel the fog of pain clouding blue's thoughts and he urged him gently with little touches to regain his senses and hurry home.

He felt a deep panic suddenly grip Blue and in his addled state, the strand lurched towards Mikey and latched onto him. Mikey jerked physically and gripped the sheets in a vice as he allowed himself to envelope Blue and urge him home home home.

_HOME._

And then he was yanked back to the real world by his older brother gently shaking him as if trying to wake him from a nightmare that he definitely wasn't having. Nice try Don.

"Yo Donnie." He croaked out in an oddly hoarse voice that startled him enough to reach up and grasp his throat as if holding it would somehow put a piece back in place and restore his familiar voice.

"Yo? Yo?!" Uh oh, Donnie was working himself up into his screechy preachy mode, "I get called down to the mess hall in the middle of dinner because you are screaming hysterically on the floor of the kitchens, you then go unconscious before you can tell anyone what is wrong with you and all you have to say to me is YO?!"

Mikey winced as Donnie reached his shrieking octave and held his hands up in surrender, "Sorry bro. "

Donnie let out a huff and turned to the machines to silently check Mikey's vitals for a moment. Thinking that he was free, Mikey closed his eyes and tried to focus back in on Blue who he guided up one of their secret mountain routes towards the Lair. He was so close it felt like Mikey could reach out and touch him. And the moment he could he knew that he would never let Blue go again. Once again he was pulled away from Blue when Donnie rapped on his head like he was knocking on a door.

"Hello? Anyone in there?" He asked and Mikey stuck his tongue out at him grumpily in response.

"What happened last night Mikey? I've run every test and scan that I can think of and other than some odd brain wave activity I can't find anything wrong with you." His russet gaze was filled with deep concern that made Mikey feel guilty for lying to him even as the words poured out of his mouth.

"I dunno dude. My side started hurting really bad and then I don’t remember anything else that happened.”

Donnie’s eyes narrowed at Mikey as if trying to determine whether his younger brother was telling him the whole truth. Mikey kept grinning, but it became more forced and he felt some sweat break out on his upper lip.

“You’re not telling me the whole story, Michelangelo.”

"I don't know what you're talking about dude." Mikey shrugged in what he hoped looked like an innocent gesture and boldly held Donnie's eye contact. His genius brother frowned and his eyes narrowed even further. They remained in that staring match for a few minutes before Donnie released Mikey's gaze and turned his attention down to his medical. He muttered to himself as he scrolled through the information and essentially ignored Michelangelo in favor of figuring out the puzzle of Mikey's sudden attack.

Normally Mikey would have been a whining mess in a few minutes of the torture of not being in the spotlight, but this time he had a mission so he closed his eyes and focussed on Blue and guiding him through the snowy paths of their mountain home, bringing him closer and closer with each step. There were occasional twinges of pain from Blue's injuries that made Mikey wince and tense until they quickly faded back into a numbness that reminded Mikey of that local anesthetic Donny had given him that time he had to get stitches. 

Mikey was too relieved not to be overwhelmed by that pain to wonder about the strange lack of sensation. He just chattered away at Blue about whatever he could think of, all the while gently nudging him in the right directions. He cackled evilly in his own mind and his ingenious skills of misdirection and hoped that Blue hadn't caught on yet. He wasn't 100% exactly what was filtering to the other side of the connection because he had never been able to do this with Donnie or Raph but he was pretty sure he knew what he was doing.

Everything was going so perfectly to his plan that Mikey began humming a nameless tune to himself as he laid there. He began to bob his head to the song of his own creation and mumbled improvised lyrics to himself. He heard an amused snort from the side of him where Donnie was sitting and he cracked open one eye to see Donnie watching him with a look of mixed confusion and amusement.

"You ready to tell me what's really going on yet?" Donnie asked with an arched eyebrow and Mikey once again felt the truth knocking against his closed lips. He had been dying to tell someone since the moment that he had felt Blue's presence again and with Blue so close he would soon have evidence for his logical brother. Yeah, Donnie would totally believe him the moment he saw Blue. How could he not? It was **Blue**. Nuff said.

And so with an affirmative nod, Mikey began his tale, starting with how he had always had their presence in the back of his head and the third presence had been dormant until a couple of days ago when it had suddenly come back to life. He went on to describe how he was beginning to communicate with Blue and how blue had nudged, pushed, and shocked him back. All the while Donnie sat there with a completely impassive look on his face.

"- and now our big brother is on his way here, dude. I'm like totally guiding him with my mind mojo dude." Mikey blurted out in excitement, taking a deep breath for the first time since he began talking.

"Uh-huh. So you said that you've been having these hallucinations for two days now?”

Mikey let out a long drawn-out noise of frustration that had been brewing inside of him since the first time his brothers had dismissed his connection to his brothers as childish fantasies. It was a masterpiece.

It went unappreciated by Donnie who just raised an eye ridge and gave him a deadpan look. Mikey poured back at him and threw his hands up in the air dramatically. 

“They’re not hallucinations bro!” He protested but Donnie ignored him and continued to scroll through his pad. Mikey watched that little concerned furrow form in his older brother’s brow the more he scrolled. 

“Mhm.” He just muttered and Mikey found himself at a crossroads. He could do what he had done for thirteen years and concede to Donnie’s general disbelief of anything that wasn’t scientifically proven. Or, he could throw the tantrum of all tantrums that he could feel building inside of him. Mikey lingered on the edge of a tantrum for a moment as he searched for Blue.

Blue was following his directions up the mountain, he had almost made it to their secret path up the cliff face and then he would be home in a matter of hours. He was so close that Mikey felt he could reach out to the electric blue and touch him. And he would, in a couple of hours his brother would be reunited with him and he wouldn’t let go for the next year, minimum.

But then, Blue turned around.

Blue’s strand was vibrating with a strange stubborn intensity that rivaled anything Mikey had encountered from either of his older brothers. It felt like he had run into a brick wall that refused to bend to his will, even his patented puppy dog eyes. Whatever decision Blue had just made, Mikey wasn’t going to be able to convince him to abandon it as easily as he was used to.

Suddenly Blue began to move once more, but this time it was in the wrong direction. Down the mountain. Away from their family. Away from Mikey.

Quickly Mikey reached for Blue’s strand and cradled it to his chest and projected his plea with as much force as he could.

_Wait! You’re almost there!_

His call went unheeded and Blue continued to move away from him. Mikey gripped Blue’s strand harder and looked around desperately for someone to help.

Donnie!

Donnie could help!

...If he even believed Mikey.

An image of Donnie looking at Mikey like he was a mental patient flashed through his mind’s eye and Mikey was immediately flooded with a sense of despair and panic.

Unsure of what else to do Mikey slipped over the edge and fell into a tantrum. In reality, he burst into tears and began streaming as he struggled against the suddenly restricting blankets. He kicked and screamed and begged for Blue to come back, but his brother just kept walking away.

So Mikey would make him stay.

With a tremendous mental effort and a mental and physical scream, Mikey **pulled**.

_stop stop stop STOP!_

He felt familiar hands trying to hold him down and restrain him, but Mikey refused to give in and he shook and kicked off whoever was trying to calm him down.

He wanted Blue!

He pulled as hard as he could and suddenly Blue’s strand began to flicker and jerk in his arms like an animal in pain, desperately struggling to live.

Mikey froze and felt his body try to arch as much as it could with his shell restricting that particular movement. It felt like volts of electricity were zinging through his nerves and frying his already frazzled brain.

His vision flickered between the infirmary where a concerned Donnie was calling for assistance and the snow-filled forest where Blue lay writhing on the ground.

He saw a flash of blue eyes so electric they crackled with life and then he was unceremoniously thrown back onto the bed as Donnie primed a needle of some tranquilizer to get him to calm down.

But how could Mikey calm down?

He had hurt Blue!

Blue was alone in the woods, _suffering_ because of him. He had to help him! He had to get to Blue. He couldn’t lose him again. Not again.

“No! No Donnie please don't!” He pleaded with his suddenly conflicted brother who paused with the needle just inches away from Mikey’s shaking arm.

“He needs me, Donnie! I have to help him! He’s almost here. He so close! Please!” His teary, slightly bloodshot baby blues sought out Donnie’s gaze, but his brother wasn’t looking at him. He was staring down at his arm and the needle that was inches away from sedating him and cutting off his connection to Blue.

“ **He** needs me! **Blue**!” Mike all but screamed into Donnie’s ear, his eyes frantically searching back and forth between the needle and his arm. In his mind, he cradled Blue’s strand with a gentleness like when it had first come back to life and sent off a litany of apologies to Blue as he came out of whatever Mikey had caused.

He didn’t realize that he was saying them aloud until he felt the telltale prick of a needle on his flesh and he went silent as he watched his brother push sedative into his bloodstream. 

The clock was ticking.

As gently as he could Mikey urged Blue to his feet and guided him towards the cliff face. He could already feel the mental fog of the drugs and his instructions became little more than sloppy pushes in the right direction. He panicked a little when he realized that he wouldn’t have time to guide Blue up the cliff face using their well-hidden path. He would have to resort to a shortcut.

His mind latched onto the cliff face itself and as he blinked heavily, the darkness of sleep pulling him in, he sent Blue one last push towards the cliff face and faded into sleep.

_Up you go, dude._

* * *

  
When Mikey awoke for the second time in the infirmary Donnie was perched on his bedside, staring at him with sad eyes.

“Mikey I’m sorry.” He started as soon as Mikey blearily blinked himself awake, “I had to sedate you. You were going to hurt yourself, or Angel.”

So that’s who had been holding him down for the injection. Good old Angel had always been a little protective of Mikey and in retrospect, he recognized her gentle yet firm grip. 

He turned his attention back to Donnie and tried to figure out why his brother was apologizing. What was he babbling about?

“Donnie.” He slurred and frowned at his own inability to speak but pushed on stubbornly.

“Where’s Blue?” He asked the question like it was the most obvious thing in the world and Donnie's eyes shuddered with a shadow that Mikey hadn't seen in a long time. Unbidden a fuzzy memory of Donnie's teary gaze staring down at him while Raph clung to him from behind like he would disappear if he let up even a little bit. Mikey had asked the same question and Donnie could do nothing but shake his head.

Mikey pulled himself away from young Donnie and back to older Donnie who was taking his pulse on his uncasted arm. His normally clinical grip was soft, and once he was satisfied with his measurement he sat down on the edge of Mikey's bed and cradled Mikey's head so that their foreheads were touching. The gesture immediately put Mikey at ease. It was something he had done with his brothers for as long as he could remember. When he was younger it was the only way to get him to calm down from one of his many nightmares.

Mikey closed his eyes and relaxed against his brother's touch, and as his mind cleared he realized that Donnie was shaking slightly. His arms felt like lead but Mikey brought them up to capture Donnie in a hug. His brainy brother immediately melted into the embrace and buried his face in Mikey's neck. His breathing was slightly labored from the effort of controlling his emotions and it tickled with each puff.

Mikey held back his giggles as best he could but eventually they burst out of him and he squirmed away from Donnie, who pulled back with an exasperated smile on his lips. 

"You scared me, Michelangelo." He admonished but he couldn't fight the smile. Mikey assumed one of his classic 'I'm innocent' looks, hoping that it might settle Donnie down.

"I had to call Raph back from the supply run." Donnie's smile didn't fade but Mikey felt a cold rush of guilt surge through him and he sunk back into the pillows of the bed. Raphie was gonna be pissed. Everybody thought that Mikey got the most joy out of supply runs but it was actually Raph that loved them the most. Most days Raph could handle being essentially sequestered with the other refugees to humor their overprotective father, but the supply runs were his chance to let loose and be free.

Mikey was sooo dead.

"Yep." It was like Donnie read his mind and his smile got a little more rueful when he realized what Mikey was thinking. Then it disappeared completely as he reached for one of his portable scanners and began calibrating it.

"Now I want to do some more tests on your brain. Hold still. This won't hurt a bit if you behave."

Mikey nodded and retreated into his own mind as Donnie scanned him. He checked on Raph's strand, which was pulsing with frustration and heaping amounts of worry. he was once more close by and Mikey realized that he must be just arriving at the mountain. He brushed over Donnie's strand which was still shaking slightly with fear and a deep hurt that Mikey had never seen before. He made a note to hug Donnie again and moved onto Blue's strand.

...it was dying.

The vibrant blue light was fading as it pulsed slowly, laying limp in Mikey's mind-space. He tried to hug it close to him, to help Blue, but he just felt numb and tired when he touched it. Like all of his energy was bleeding out of him and he could do nothing to stop it. The only thing Mikey was able to read was that Blue was close. Like in the mountain close.

Mikey burst out of his mind-space feeling energized and a little frantic. Blue needed his help and he was finally close enough to do it in person. he practically vibrated with energy as he leaped from the bed and wobbled slightly on his shaky legs.

"Mikey!" Donnie yelled in surprise and came over to support him. Once Mikey was steady Donnie tried to lead him back to the bed but Mikey remained adamant that he had to leave.

"Donnie he's here! Our brother is here." He exclaimed happily and Donnie looked at him like he was crazy.

"I've never seen you so excited to see Raph." He said, dumbfounded.

An almost frantic laugh burst out of Mikey and he shook his head at his surprisingly obtuse genius brother. Did Donnie really not know? Could he truly not feel that Blue was here? Did he still not believe him.

"No not him! It's-"

He was cut off as Angel burst into the infirmary with a determined look on her face. She gave Mikey a once over to make sure that he was okay, making Mikey's heart bounce happily in his chest at her subtle sign of concern. Once she made sure that Mikey was standing and not a death's door she looked to Donatello.

"Raphael and the scavenging party have returned," Mikey opened his mouth to add that they weren't the only ones that they should be welcoming but Angel continued with only a slight pause as if she wasn't sure how to say whatever she was going to reveal next.

"...And they have a prisoner." Mikey and Donnie froze and looked at her in shock. While they knew that it was inevitable that the scavenging party would run into enemies and might have to 'take care of' them, they had never before brought one back, let alone alive.

"He's a turtle." Angel tried to remain professional but Mikey could see the tremor in her jaw that said she was nervous. Then all of his attention turned to her words which sent a sheet of ice through his entire body. Everyone in the room remained quiet as they stared at each other, all waiting for someone else to break the silence and give them some kind of direction.

"I want to see him." Mikey suddenly demanded and Donnie's shocked look turned to Mikey where exasperation joined his expression.

"Mikey come on-" he tried to speak in his 'I'm reasoning with a crazy person' voice but Mikey ignored him and stood on his own with new strength.

"No Donnie. Listen to me. He's our **brother**. And I want to see him now." Mikey gave Donnie his most serious look as the genius searched his expression for something. Mikey was unsure what he was looking for but he seemed to find it so he merely nodded and the three of them began their hurried walk through the halls of the Lair down to an area of unused storage rooms that Mikey had never even seen before. Sure there were parts of the complex that he had never seen before despite his extensive exploring, but this area was where Blue was, so suddenly it was important and he had the itch to know its every square inch.

They were halfway down the hall when they heard a dinosaur like roar of fury and several booms of impact coming from the end of the hall. Mikey and Donnie exchanged worried looks and hurried their pace until they were almost running. They had almost reached the end when they ran into Raphael.

He was storming towards a room that Mikey could clearly see was guarded by Casey Jones. The normally macho former vigilante was clutching his favorite bat like he depended on it and wildly looking around at the darkness inside the room as if he was searching for something. Donnie called out to Raph as they caught up to him and slowed down to match his less frantic pace. Raph was putting off serious 'danger! stay back' vibes. Normally Mikey would defer to his superior instincts but today he pushed forward and all but ran to the doorway.

“Where is he? Where is he? WHERE IS HE?!” Mikey couldn't help himself as his sheer excitement burst from his body like a ray of pure sunlight. His body itched to move so he bounced around Donnie and Raph, circling his family and waiting for the Hallmark moment when Blue would walk from the darkness and they would all hug and laugh and live happily ever after!

He climbed onto Raph's shell, scrabbling on the rough material in his search to find a good vantage point to see more of the room that his brother's had carefully and not-so-subtly kept him from entering. Raph pushed him off reflexively and Donnie caught Mikey in his iron grip. Donnie was usually pretty good at Mikey-wrangling when he got on Raph's nerves but this time nothing and I mean nothing could calm him down.

Mikey searched the shadows of the room as Raph bellowed at Casey but he came up frustratingly empty.

Sheesh didn't they have any lights down here?

His eyes strained to sort through the shadows in an attempt to find the turtle that his brother had 'captured'. It had to be Blue, there was no one else that it could be. Like really what were the odds that both blue and another turtle mutant were on their way to the Lair at the same exact time. 

Then he heard that Spike and Casey had lost Blue and his stomach hit the floor like a lead weight. A despairing cry was wrenched out of him at the mere thought that Blue might not be here anymore. How could those two lunkheads let him run away? He was probably lost and scared and he needed Mikey RIGHT NOW.

“You lost him? B-But we gotta find him.” He turned his puppy eyes on his older brothers who suddenly looked away uncomfortably. Oh yeah, it wouldn't take him long to break them.

Mikey felt Blue's strand stir in the back of his mind and he whipped around to gape at the darkness. in the space of a breath, two glowing blue eyes appeared in the shadows a few feet in front of him. Mikey's hands twitched with a sudden need to grab the owner of those eyes and hold on tight. He knew those eyes, they had haunted his dreams his whole life. They shone with the same light as blue's strand and Mikey felt desperate tears well up in his eyes.

Suddenly the argument behind him went silent and the eyes materialized into the lithe, well-muscled form of a turtle that looked exactly like all of them. Vaguely he heard the sound of weapons being drawn but he couldn't;t be bothered to care, not when Blue was actually standing in front of him like a dramatic hero from one of his favorite cartoons. This guy had some serious Captain Ryan vibes. Maybe even better than Captian Ryan. 

It was Blue!

A million words swelled up in Mikey's throat and he couldn't decide which to say first so he opened his mouth and let the first thing he could think of fall out.

“Dude...It’s you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone made it this far then I applaud you! My Mikey POV has always been a little shaky so sorry! We will be back to Kame/Leo's POV soon.


	7. Blinding Lights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys can thank Anonymous_Jam for this chapter. They got me thinking about the story again and suddenly the inspiration flowed like a river. Pounded this baby out in only a couple hours! Enjoy this unscheduled content readers!

Kame felt frozen as he stood there staring at the young turtle in front of him. Orange was still holding his hand out and every inch of Kame's body screamed at him to run away, to melt into the shadows and retreat into himself until he was healed enough to run.... or until he died. It was his reflex to retreat from the light into the darkness. He had been raised in shadow and taught to become one with them until he felt like he himself was a shadow. Kame felt comfortable in the shadows, that was where he belonged. The light would only expose his scars to the world, both in and out. It would expose how broken he was.

But this turtle in front of him shone with a different kind of light. Suddenly Kame felt warm in a way that he had never thought possible during the winter. As soon as the first hint of cold appeared in the air it settled deep in his bones and was nearly impossible to banish. It seemed to linger longer and longer until it lasted through the summer and made him it's permanent home. But the smile of this young turtle sent a cleansing warmth through him that dissolved any lingering cold and made him feel at home. It was so comforting, so familiar that Kame felt himself descend into a state of anxiety that the smile would leave, the turtle would turn away from him and he would be cold forever.

He felt the urge to grab Orange and he held the soft blue gaze as his stomach squirmed with inner turmoil between his fear of stepping into the light and his fear of losing this specific light. His instincts told him that he was in danger, that the other beings in this room were hostile and possessed weapons, he was severely injured, and he was blind to anything that wasn't this mesmerizing young one in front of him.

Orange's look wavered for a moment and Kame realized that they had been staring silently at each other for several minutes and Kame had been still as a stone the entire time. He hadn't even been breathing. Kame relaxed himself enough to let out a breath and resume breathing normally as he glanced down at Orange's extended hand before flitting his gaze back to that innocent face.

Orange's smile faded a little as uncertainty bled into it and his hand began to fall down from its outstretched position. Sheer panic electrocuted Kame's every nerve as his brain screamed at him that he would lose his chance, lose the **light** if he didn't do something right now.

In a jerky, painful movement, Kame felt his body lurch forward a couple of steps towards the young turtle. Orange's smile reached new levels of brightness as his eyes widened ever so slightly in excitement. His hand stopped its descent and shot back out towards Kame's broken form.

The others did not react nearly as favorably to Kame's sudden movement. Red and the two humans drew their weapons and Red growled out an obvious warning that made Kame's scales bristle in response. Purple lunged forward and grabbed Orange like a precious gem, pulling him away from Kame and into his secure hold at the entrance to the holding cell. So they were protective of Orange, the analytical side of Kame's brain reasoned and the unfamiliar and often suppressed emotional part of him clamored that of course they were! Orange was precious! And Kame had to get him back.

So Kame followed the light and took a few more steps towards the obviously hostile group, despite his tactical mind screaming that he was at a significant disadvantage in this situation. But the light had made Kame's mind fuzzy and warm just like the rest of him so it was like wading through mud for him to return to rational thought. For now, he was following a deeper part of him that had been dormant for longer than any other part of him that demanded he get Orange back.

Suddenly his view of Orange was blocked by the hulking form of Spike and like a solar eclipse, Kame awoke in darkness, and the cold reality of his situation sunk down his spine, heavy with his dread. But he refused to show the giant brute that he was feeling anything except superior in that moment. All it took was one look in those beady black eyes and he was Kame once again.

He was shoved back into a cold, hard persona that he had lived in for what felt like all his life. He was returned to where he had been before he had seen the light of Orange, felt the warmth of his... whatever feeling he was projecting like a beacon. Only now the brittle shell he had worn no longer fit and Kame itched desperately to get back into the light and explore the version of himself that he had found there. But he just sank deeper into the darkness as it reminded him that he was scarred, broken, unworthy. He was a piece of trash that had been thrown away and was now wandering around aimlessly trying to redeem himself. But he would always be trash, and no smiling orange turtle could change how broken and tainted he was.

Kame once again tensed into a fighting stance and defiantly tilted his face up at the behemoth that stood over him, smirking and cracking his knuckles. The sound was loud and jarring in the cavernous room and it was accompanied by the hoarse voice of the thug.

"Now where do you think yer goin' Foot scum?" The taunt hit a wall of ice in Kame's blue eyes as he glared coolly back at his opponent, waiting for Spike to make the first move. He strongly considered retreating into the shadows once more and waiting for the brute to get bored and wander off, but he realized that with the addition of Red and the other two humans, that was no longer an option. Not to mention the fact that his side was gushing thick blood that was running down his leg in sickeningly warm rivulets to gather in a steadily growing pool beneath his feet.

From where Kame now stood in the light he was exposed and his increasingly obvious injury was as well. The beady black eyes of Spike flitted down to the blood pool under Kame and his sharp teeth widened into a sinister smile that vaguely reminded Kame of a shark. There was a familiar bloodlust in Spike's eyes.

Oddly it made Kame more comfortable with the fight, as he had seen that look directed at him countless times before. It would not be an easy battle, but Kame had defeated every blood-hungry 'shark' in the past and he refused to be devoured by this one.

" _You are nothing to me. I will break you like those before you."_ He hissed out his challenge in Japanese partly to annoy Spike and also to lock away his own doubts and limitations in favor of the battle.

"Speak. Fucking. English!" Spike roared and launched himself at Kame who managed to dodge him at the last minute, grabbing one of Spike's tree trunk arms as he moved past him like a river around a boulder. He twisted the gargantuan limb behind Spike's back, yanking with all of his strength until he heard the familiar crack-pop of a limb dislocating. He then released the now useless arm and spun around to watch Spike clutch his shoulder in pain and roar out in that same vaguely dinosaur-ish way that he had done before.

Unfortunately, the sudden quick movement combined with his steady blood loss sent a wave of dizziness crashing into Kame as he stumbled gracelessly in the center of the room. Around the muted roaring in his ears, Kame could hear the others speaking frantically in English to each other. His brain too addled to translate the harsh and inelegant language, Kame instead read their body language in an attempt to gauge the situation.

Purple was still clutching Orange to his chest, but now the little one was struggling. Kame's brain fuzzed over, and he was suddenly seeing an image long gone in their place. Suddenly Purple was clutching a turtle so young and fragile, a baby of not even a year old. Kame's arms ached to hold the baby, the baby belonged in his arms, where he was safe from-

Kame was forced out of his hallucination by the impact of Spike as he shoved him with the force of an angry freight train. This time Kame flew across the floor towards the entrance until he slid to a stop mere feet away from Orange who was now crying and yelling something that Kame could not for the life of him understand. Why couldn't he **understand**?

Spike's dark laughter tore Kame's attention away from the struggling turtle and Kame struggled to his feet, gritting his teeth with the effort it took just to fight exhaustion. His limbs buckled and he caught himself so that he was kneeling on one knee, propped up by one shaking arm. He felt the tang of iron on his tongue as blood welled up in his mouth and he immediately spit a stream of the offending red liquid into the dirt of the floor. He raised his head and glared at Spike as he advanced cockily towards where Kame kneeled.

"Not so tough now huh? You're gonna regret ever walking into **my** home Foot trash."

Kame refused to feel the barb of his insults, no matter how deep the comment about being trash unexpectedly cut through him like a knife. He looked up at the Spike, barely able to summon the energy to hold his head up and speak in a breathless voice.

" _I have survived worse than you. You will not break me."_

Before the visibly frustrated brute could charge again he heard a cry of pain from Purple and suddenly an orange blur was leaping in between him and Spike with his arms outstretched defensively. Kame stared up in sheer amazement and bemusement at the Orange's stubborn form as he yelled at Spike.

The behemoth did not stop his advance but he hesitated long enough to glance over at where Red was standing. Red barked something at Spike but Kame watched as Spike shook his head and grumbled something about _doing what no one else would_. But it was the words that he practically breathed out they were so quiet that sent ice through Kame's veins.

"And no little brat is gonna stop me."

It all happened in an instant.

Suddenly Spike was upon them and time slowed down as his uninjured arm swung at Mikey like a battering ram. Behind him, Kame heard Red and Purple scream wordlessly as they no doubt scrambled forward to stop the inevitable impact.

They would not reach them in time.

Suddenly pure adrenaline burned through Kame's veins like fire and his pain faded underneath the flames. Without a thought, Kame launched himself into the air so that he was vaulting Orange and sailing through the air towards Spike.

Shock spread slowly over Spike's narrow face and before it could fully settle in, Leo had shifted in the air so that his good leg was extended fully and the heel of his foot was headed directly for Spike's face. Kame felt the impact ripple through his body as his foot slammed into Spike's face and sent him flying back into the wall he had previously thrown Kame into. Only this time, the force of the impact was enough to leave a shell-sized dent in the concrete. Spike immediately slumped to the ground face first, unconscious.

Kame landed gracefully on the balls of his feet and stared at the place where his foe lay unmoving. He took one step forward to finish him, his hands reaching for katana blades that he had forgotten were no longer there. When his fingers met air his hands clenched to fists instead and he mentally shrugged. He did not need his katana to kill an enemy.

"Stop!" The word halted Kame in his tracks and he turned around slowly to meet the worried gaze of Orange who was slowly stepping towards him like he was a feral animal that could lash out at any moment.

Orange shouldn't worry about Kame hurting him. Kame would never hurt Orange.

His brain stuck on this loop for a minute until he felt the ever so soft touch of Orange's fingers on his clenched fist. Orange had enveloped his tight fist in both of his hands and was cradling it so delicately that it sent a twinge through Kame's heart. He did not deserve such tenderness.

The thought was fleeting as his vision began to darken around the edges until all Kame could focus on was his now relaxed hand clasped in between two soft green hands so like his own that they felt like a part of him. It felt wrong to see his own scarred digits clasped by such clean, pure hands but before he could pull away the sight before him melted into a fuzzy memory of an impossibly tiny three-fingered fist clutching one of his fingers like it was the only tether keeping the little hand in place.

His body chose that moment to realize that the danger of Spike had passed, the fire of adrenaline extinguished and Kame's vision faded out as his legs buckled and he tumbled down to the floor. He closed his eyes to brace for impact but suddenly a strong pair of arms caught him and a soft voice whispered comforting nonsense to him. He tried to open his eyes once more to see who had him, but the darkness held tight and he once more descended into its murky depths.

* * *

Every part of Mikey was tingling painfully with the electric sensation of a deep sense of knowing, of recognition. He was cradling the unconscious form of his brother in his arms and despite the pure chaos that he had just witnessed, all he could focus on was how it felt to grasp those rough, scarred hands in his own. It felt like coming home, like up until now he had been floating around in space and now he was grounded, securely tethered by his grip on that unfamiliar/familiar hand.

He didn't hear his brother's voices as they descended on him like the mother hens that they were, in fact, he barely felt their comforting touch as they tried to pull him away from the turtle in his arms. He was in a trance, staring at those hands until he saw the first drip of dark red oozing from his brother onto the floor below them.

He was pulled back to reality with sheer terror and his eyes immediately welled with frightened tears as he tightened his grip on the turtle in his arms and searched the faces around him for Donnie.

When he finally found his brother's concerned chocolate gaze the tears broke free of his eyes and began soaking his cheeks until they fell to the floor to mix with the growing pool of blood.

"Donnie please." He sobbed out and choked on his own words for a few precious seconds before he could once more force himself to speak.

"Help him." Donnie looked conflicted and Mikey began to cry harder, releasing one of his hands to transfer his death grip to Donnie's hand rather than Blue's.

"You gotta help him, bro. He's dying."

There was another heart-stopping moment of indecision before Donnie's expression shifted into Doctor-mode and he commanded Casey and Angel to grab Blue under his arms and feet respectively. Mikey reluctantly released his grip on his new brother's body and the two humans began carefully moving his body out of the room and down the hallways towards the infirmary.

Mikey stood in the hallway for a moment, staring sightlessly at their retreating forms as his mind whirred frantically.

So much had just happened in the span of a couple of hours, he had to take a second and catalog his feelings or he might just explode.

First of all, Blue was home back with them again: _Yay!_

But, He was hurt really bad: _Noooooo!_

Secondly, Blue was a badass ninja: _Awesome!_

But, he was a part of the Foot clan, their mortal enemies: _So totally not awesome._

Thirdly, his bro didn't seem to speak English: _That never stopped the great Mikester before!_

And lastly, Blue seemed to recognize him:...

Mikey took off in a sprint after his brothers with a crowing shout,

"Cowabunga!!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just in case anyone is curious I have a Spotify Playlist for this story called Castaway Writing Inspiration. I highly recommend listening to it while you read because I listen to it on repeat when I write!


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